"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
I was around nine years old when 9/11 occurred, but I hadn’t known of what happened to the World Trade Center until I started 3rd grade in Ridgway the year after. As soon as I saw the explosions from the World Trade Center, probably in a magazine or online, I remember feeling deeply shocked by what I had witnessed. It might have been a blessing that I did not see this unfolding on TV the moment it occurred.
I also remember being told of when my mother was given a phone call early in the morning by a good friend of hers from across the county, and she was told on the phone,
Turn on the TV. Now.
Once she turned it on, only then did she see the World Trade Center engulfed in flames until it ultimately collapsed into the ground. Everyone was rocked to their core by what happened there, and because it took away the lives of the many innocent people who were subject to the horrific attacks by Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, it spurred a war on our end against them since then.
How much of our efforts paid off in the end after 20 years? That’s a little hard to tell. In this case, however, as we remember all those who fell on this tragic day, we must also not forget that it wasn’t without heroism and circumstances that prompted quick thinking to ensure that our country would survive regardless of whatever catastrophe it deals with.
I can think of no source where that was displayed more prominently or soberingly than in Paul Greengrass’ United 93.
The film started on a regular day with several passengers hustling together at the Newark International Airport (now called the Newark Liberty International Airport) to board United Airlines Flight 93 for San Francisco. All the passengers were just getting in their seats and getting comfortable in the flight when among those passengers were four Al-Qaeda terrorists who planned to steer the airplane into the Capitol building in Washington, DC. The rest of the movie is not only the passengers’ reactions when the terrorists suddenly held them hostage at the most crucial moment but also the reactions from on land as everyone wrapped their heads around all the chaos that unfolded. It started with the suspicious detouring of American Airlines Flight 11 (which would’ve hit the North Tower), United Airlines Flight 175 (which would’ve hit the South Tower), and American Airlines Flight 77, culminating in the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. What would’ve happened now that everyone on land caught on to such disasters, as did the passengers on United 93, and what would they have done in response to it?
In real life, we know the answer.
Whenever we think of 9/11, we usually think of the destruction of the World Trade Center and how two planes crashed into the towers, leaving them on fire for around an hour to an hour and a half until they collapsed. However, United 93 feels like a different beast from all the other documentaries and films made of 9/11, especially, for instance, Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center. Those paid attention to the tragedy that occurred as well as the lives of those who were murdered in the World Trade Center. This movie acknowledges some of the victims of 9/11, too, but while the focus is on the United 93 victims, what I witnessed of them before they became among the next of the fallen victims left me at a loss for words because of how such seemingly innocent and regular people would’ve banded together and risen to guarantee our country’s longevity, no matter the circumstances.
But I’ll get to that very soon.
One of the first things I must address here is Paul Greengrass’ directing. He’d already directed plenty of solid thrillers before, including The Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum. But he’d also proven himself equally adept in providing the same thrills in films about real-life events, as he demonstrated with Bloody Sunday and later, 22 July. The way Greengrass highlighted the tragedies associated with 9/11 put me at the edge of my seat, fearful under the knowledge of what was about to follow as I watched what started as ordinary events.
You have the passengers getting on United Airlines Flight 93 and ready to depart for San Francisco, and then boom, the four terrorists suddenly lunged forth. Next, there was nothing but mass chaos and panic everywhere. So, once the terrorists did their thing, I would have been as taken by surprise as the passengers were.
Come to think of it, it is a harrowing thing to feel throughout the first half of the movie, regardless. Because it started like an average day, especially in places like the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the airlines, I never knew exactly when the chaotic events that made September 11, 2001, such a devastating day were all going to occur. And, yes, even when the action got going, it was no easier to sit through when we all knew what was happening and being revisited, if not recreated, before our eyes.
Some of such scenes are brutalizing to watch, and it does feel a little emotionally draining to see all the chaos come about that led to the destruction of the World Trade Center and the lives of so many people. One of the most remarkable parts of this film was that, regardless of who was in focus, everything that occurred in the movie as the intertwining events culminated in the infamous devastations took place in real-time. Because of this, once the chips started falling into place, we, as the audience, were left to soak in the same fear, confusion, and heartbreak that everyone felt as the chaos unfolded.
Paul Greengrass knew when to heighten the suspense, when to let the action unfold, and why all of this amounted to something as devastating as the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
We should also pay attention to the film’s editing.
I knew it was bound to be good since it was nominated for an Oscar for this craft, and as I watched the film all the way through, the editing was exceptional in how it cuts from one scene to the next. It did so with frantic essences and then with borderline confusion over the events, thus adding to the dread, uncertainty, and fear rampant throughout United Airlines Flight 93 and all the airlines and air defense sectors back on land.
The agile camera movements helped with that, too. The film did an excellent job of cluing us into all the goings-on, down to the news broadcasts showing the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But whenever the camera movements shifted from one spot to another, or the scenes moved from one angle – or person – to another, it helped heighten the film’s intensity for me.
Another factor that I’m not sure everybody talked about enough is the music by John Powell. I admire what he conveyed and imbued into this film to enhance the right mood. It started off slow yet modest, and as the looming disasters drew near, the music’s inner twinge of uncertainty, tension, dread, and intensity rose with it.
But it also did so while conveying such origins and being mindful of its tone, depending on the circumstances in which they occurred. The music came forth in the right notes and places at the right time.
Now, let’s take a close look at the actors; I consider them one of the most substantial factors of the film.
All the actors who partook in this film were primarily unknowns. No one actor was an A-list star destined to help carry the movie through; all the actors played their roles with the utmost believability. In so doing, they, too, added to the film’s collective authenticity, which, in turn, played to its more realistic strengths.
As I’ve noticed many people point out online, it would have been so easy to compile an all-star cast over the recreation of a devastating event like 9/11 for film. But sometimes, that can make or break a movie. Here, by going for 100% natural and all-new actors for the movie, they helped provide a more natural edge to United 93 that would only have emphasized the devastating effects to follow. When you see such innocent people as the passengers and crew of United 93 under such turmoil once they were held captive by the terrorists, you could feel their terror and pain as they felt like their time was up.
Do you remember how, in Goodfellas, the film roped in Edward A. McDonald, who spoke with Henry Hill and his wife Karen about placing them in the Witness Protection Program, and later talked to Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco as the Hills the same way? I won’t specify who, but a good chunk of airline security officers reappeared as themselves and in the same positions in this movie. It helped because they were the people who were there when 9/11 happened, so all the input they shared with the cast and crew as they put this film together says a lot about how much of what went on during 9/11 is important to remember, starting throughout the progression of this film.
One of the actors who left a distinct mark was Christian Clemenson, who played Tom Burnett. I admire how he played Burnett like a regular guy, as he also expressed a slight no-nonsense commitment to him. It especially felt prominent since he was the one who got the ball rolling with the passengers’ eventual violent retaliation against the terrorists. There’s a sense that Clemenson played him like he was as regular a guy as everyone else, only to suddenly think of ideas as to what he thought could’ve helped him and his fellow passengers out. I believe he played Burnett’s normal side so well because it made his long-term contributions feel much more incredible.
And there’s something about Trish Gates that I thought she did a great job on when she portrayed Sandra Bradshaw, one of the flight’s stewardesses. She played her with evident modesty, especially as a mother with children back home. She played her with the utmost decency only to later express her heartbreak under the extreme conditions under which she did not expect herself to be. So, to me, she nailed that part of her character so skillfully, too.
One other character that I cannot help but reflect on regularly is Major Kevin Nasypany from Rome, New York, portrayed by Patrick St. Esprit, who oversaw the Eastern Air Defense Sector as he and his coworkers witnessed what started as unusual flight patterns. At one point, he contemplated whether they should shoot down the hijacked planes so they could stop the terrorists from going through with their nefarious plans.
Somehow, that character stood out to me because of how tempted he was to want to retaliate against the terrorists once they sprang into action, even if he was more concerned about stopping evil from doing its thing than taking a minute to step back and see how that would affect the innocent people who were also held hostage by them. I might be misreading this, but that’s the general impression I got out of him in this film, and it makes this no less fascinating to think about.
But the actors who truly blew me away were the Middle Eastern actors playing the four terrorists: Khalid Abdalla as Ziad Jarrah, Omar Berdouni as Ahmed al-Haznawi, Lewis Alsamari as Saeed al-Ghamdi, and Jamie Harding as Ahmed al-Nami.
Every time these actors played the terrorists, they left me fear-stricken every time they showed up since I knew what they were about to do. But at the same time, I looked at them like I caught even passing glimpses of who they were and who they were doing this for. I can tell they were doing this for a religious cause, as I noticed from Ziad reading the Qur’an in the beginning. But while the actors displayed their monstrosity very clearly, and while I’ll never forgive the terrorists for playing a hand in such inhuman goals, there were many other times when the actors played them with enough modesty and religious devotion to make me understand the purpose behind their hijacking of the plane and their attempts to navigate it towards the US Capitol, even if it was clearly religious extremism at play.
But what I find most stunning about these performances is how the actors started their roles by portraying them as such ordinary people that it made me dread them more when they acted like that because of how they, as terrorists, were secretly plotting their next attack in their heads. The actors made them look like normal human beings who just happened to be masterminds hiding in plain sight as they devised one of the most notorious terrorist schemes we’ve ever seen. The more impatient the terrorists became, the more knots my stomach tied itself in, and the closer to my throat my heart crept. As I watched all the unsuspecting passengers on the plane, I looked at them with dread, too, knowing they were about to be in for something deadly and unbearable.
Some of the actors who played the terrorists even stood out to me because of the distinctive personalities they each expressed. For example, Khalid Abdalla conveyed Ziad Jarrah, the one with the glasses, with a level of composure and confidence to him, effectively hitting home how he was the brains behind the terrorists’ plot to take over United 93. Meanwhile, Jamie Harding conveyed Ahmed al-Nami with more restlessness, making him look the most easily agitated and committed of the terrorists. Whenever I watched these two argue, I became more riveted because that told me how, even among the terrorists, there was some friction as to how they ought to carry out their plans to bomb their designated spots throughout America. In turn, it played into the conflicting priorities noticeable from the terrorists as well as in their participation in the hijacking before it came through.
Personally, I find it more compelling when any distinct features of the villain, whether it’s the writing, the performance, or, in some cases, the animation or the singing vocals, clue me into what a villain is thinking and why they’re thinking of it that way, rather than hating the villain’s guts to the point of not caring what they’re thinking. To me, this makes the villain feel much more engaging.
There is no one actor I can think of who did a lousy job in this movie. Nine times out of ten, everyone did a terrific job with what they were given for the movie, not to mention with playing all the passengers, the terrorists, and everyone involved as 9/11 came to fruition.
I noticed some people express distaste for Erich Redman’s performance as Christian Adams. He was the German businessman who contemplated following the terrorists’ instructions so that no one would’ve been hurt. Whether people were turned off by Redman’s off-kilter performance or by the likelihood of him portraying Adams with less dignity and accuracy than everyone else did with their roles, I couldn’t make it all out. But I didn’t mind his performance because, even if that was what Christian Adams was like in real life, it reflected how he attempted to resolve the dilemmas without escalating them, even if his suggestions set him apart from the others, possibly unintentionally. Besides, I’m willing to let this go since Adams thought-processed his suggestions before he and everyone else caught on to the destruction of the World Trade Center.
But before I hop on to the next big factor that helped boost the film’s integrity, I also want to comment on the film’s sense of authenticity. And I’m talking about more than just the real-time aspects utilized throughout this picture.
While United 93’s authenticity may vary depending on who was present, who said what, and so forth, among the moments from the film that felt memorable because of how they may have recreated reality concerned the phone calls the United 93 passengers made while they were held hostage. Whether it was emergency calls or calls to loved ones, many of them were conveyed with just the perfect amount of emotion to highlight the tragedy the passengers and crew members felt as they caught on to their predicament, not to mention discovered the destruction of the World Trade Center through whom they called. Even Edward Felt’s 911 call in the bathroom, while the dialogue was paraphrased a little, really did happen. You can learn more about the phone calls here, but more likely than not, the film paid close attention to the phone calls being made so it would demonstrate the purposes of such calls and who made them.
Because of its focus, how is this movie worth watching outside of the brutality apparent throughout the film and the fact that this is centered around what occurred during 9/11?
Well, here’s where, in my opinion, it gets more exciting.
The next big factor that cements this movie as worthy and phenomenal, as well as one of my all-time favorites, lies in the ending.
Everyone who has been clued into what became of United Airlines Flight 93 since that fateful day probably knows what happened. But when we do see it in this film, it feels so tragic and yet so implicitly uplifting that it hits home the devastations of 9/11 but also the heroism of the brave people who decided to revolt against the encroachment of evil and put it in its place long enough to thwart its long-term plans for world domination and crippling a prosperous country like America under the name of religious fanaticism.
Imagine the most unlikely and unimaginable evil you can encounter emerging out of nowhere to hold you down only for everything that is good, true, brave, honest, and unwavering to suddenly rise and spit that evil in the face.
But for what the United 93 passengers did to guarantee that America would still be around, I cannot help but have the utmost respect for them for stepping up the way they have. If they hadn’t stood up and given in, the plane would have bombed either the US Capitol or the White House. Because both functioned as the heart and nerves of America, our country would have been in a worse state than ever before, and Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda would and could have enacted a supreme global takeover fueled by extremism. So, the passengers’ contributions make a world of difference.
Don’t get me wrong, I truly felt sorry for the passengers for being unsuspecting victims of circumstance. But deep down, I also found myself feeling proud of them for having laid low, double checking on the validity of the destruction of the World Trade Center, thinking out their plans, brainstorming them with other people nearby, doing whatever it took to catch the terrorists with their pants down, and above all, acting in ways that would have spelled safety and longevity for our fellow country.
As the 9/11 Commission Report reflected:
We are sure that the nation owes a debt to the passengers of United 93. Their actions saved the lives of countless others, and may have saved either the Capitol or the White House from destruction.
Now, look where we’ve gone since then. While the results of our war commitments against Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda are debatable, it nonetheless did not take us until May 2, 2011, almost ten years after 9/11, to finally discover Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts and execute him for his unspeakable crimes.
It’s this kind of domino effect that the United 93 passengers’ retaliation against the terrorists had on the rest of the country that makes me sympathize with them but also salute them. They were victims of 9/11 no less than the rest, but they were also heroes that day.
Thankfully, every time the film shifted to all the people who navigated the flight patterns, whether it was in Rome, New York, Cleveland, or wherever, their seemingly everyday routines as it gradually grew frantic and even a little panicky added to the film’s tension as it looked at the devastations of 9/11 not only from a more intimate focus but also from an outer focus. While I agree that movies like Titanic and Schindler’s List do a phenomenal job of being involved enough with all the collective victims of a disaster while shedding some light on devastating times in history, and United 93 only focuses on a specific group of people, it never shied away from the total devastations 9/11 caused for everyone involved in it or affected by it.
It still highlighted the devastations that occurred when the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It’s just that, in the case of this movie, it demonstrates the devastation that unfolded from 9/11, but also how not everybody has been crippled by what went down that day and that those who were brave, smart, and resourceful enough to step up and act long enough to catch evil in their blind spot, managed to follow through with it and ensure the prosperity of America as a country and as a community because of that. Even if they had to sacrifice their lives to do it, what followed afterwards told me that their sacrifices were never in vain.
It only gets better regarding what the film has done in its general contributions. Outside of displaying a potentially overlooked and ironically influential part of 9/11, it also donated a good portion of its box-office gross when it came out in 2006 to establish a memorial for the United 93 passengers, the Flight 93 National Memorial, which is currently located in Stoystown, PA, near where the plane had crashed in Shanksville. As you can tell, the donations and efforts paid off entirely. Now, it has only expanded ever since its inception on September 10, 2011, also ten years after 9/11, and it’s become an established memorial the same way the 9/11 Memorial & Museum was erected to honor those who fell in the World Trade Center.
That’s why, while this film phenomenally demonstrates the harrowing effects of 9/11, an inner part of me can’t help but reflect on this and look at it as if it’s a pure ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ film.
When people think of 9/11 and lights at the end of the tunnel, they’d probably think of films like Zero Dark Thirty, and that would make sense, considering what it highlighted. But United 93? I love this movie to death because the people involved in such chaotic circumstances as what it highlighted helped light the spark that would’ve helped us out, even in the face of insurmountable danger.
I talked about Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and how I relish it for demonstrating the values of fighting against evil, no matter what it took to do so. But as much as I commend that film for doing that, and for all its relevance, I am leaning towards this film a little more because it demonstrates the same values, only what happened in the movie really happened and was never made up.
United 93 is one of the most powerful movies ever made of 9/11 and, personally, one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. It’s one of the best because it pays its respects to all the people who lost their lives on this unimaginably catastrophic day with the perfect emotional beats while also paying tribute to those who voluntarily rose to action and ensured that everything that we hold so dear to us, from our country to our values, would continue to stand tall and stay strong. And this film had done so with a surplus of sheer suspense, terror, tragedy, and, surprisingly, hopeful aftertastes. God bless this movie!
But more importantly, God bless the victims of 9/11 and of United 93. To all the families and friends who lost their loved ones on this day, you will forever be in our thoughts and prayers.
Now that I’ve said my peace, you may express your sentiments here.
Remember, stand tall and stay strong, no matter what happens.
My Rating
A low A+
Works Cited
The 9/11 Commission Report. (2004). The 9/11 Commission.
US Department of the Interior. (n.d.). Phone Calls from Flight 93. National Parks Service.
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