United 93

[SPOILER ALERT]
Just got back from the theater after catching United 93—or "Flight 93" as it’s titled here. I actually liked it. It doesn't lean too hard into the whole patriotic thing or go overboard with "do it for Uncle Sam" vibes; if anything, it's more the opposite. It really captures that sense of total helplessness and pure shock felt by the people working in the control towers monitoring the radar. Even the military personnel seem pretty rattled, just questioning each other about whether they can scramble F-16s. First it's "no, we don't have clearance yet," then it's "just send them, even without permission." A bit chaotic, I guess, but that’s how it actually went down. It does a great job showing how one totally routine workday can spiral into complete madness, with the tension and panic building among the staff in the Boston and New York City control towers. The movie kicks off with a guy speaking Arabic, then shows a man of Arab descent reading from the Quran in a hotel room while his friend gets ready in the bathroom. He walks out and says, "It's time." It’s shot from a first-person perspective, so I sort of felt like an observer, almost like I was right there. Things get intense when American Airlines Flight 11 stops responding and veers off course, or disappears from the radar entirely. Manhattan is the main focus in the first half, but the spotlight shifts to Flight 93 heading toward San Francisco, which the hijackers divert toward Washington, D.C. "United 93" plays out almost in real-time and starts from the terrorists' point of view. Along with the plane itself, the story jumps between five key locations: the Control Tower Newark International Airport (where United 93 took off at 8:42 AM), the control centers in Boston and New York City (where American Airlines Flight 11 and the other hijacked flights departed), the Federal Aviation Administration’s Operations command center in Virginia, and the military's operations center at the Northeast Air Defense sector (NEADS) in New York. The action jumps all over the place between these spots. Only toward the end does everything narrow down to the airplane (Flight 93) itself, headed for the White House, seen through the eyes of the hijackers. One scene that really got to me was when a worker at the Newark tower looked through binoculars and saw the plane flying low toward the Twin Towers just before the impact. It’s that exact feeling: anyone watching TV that day will understand that specific moment because they lived it too. For those who weren't even on this side of the moon, these images stay with you forever—that split second where everyone realized what was happening. It’s a tragedy that could soften even the toughest hearts, and I think Greengrass uses empathy really well without being over-the-top. I barely even noticed the music, and when it was there, it fit perfectly. Apparently, a lot of US theaters pulled the trailer from their programming because people were walking out of the cinema in tears, and some even said it was too soon for a movie like this. Oh, and one last thing—they found an actor who looks remarkably like the actual terrorist on Flight 93 (the one with the red headband in the plane).
I'm thinking of this guy:

Wait, did seriously nobody watch this movie yet?

Jeffrey Newman87 said:Has nobody actually seen this movie yet?

You've found a good pirate site... or has it hit theaters already?

David Price5 said:You’ve got a good pirate movie there... or did it already hit theaters?

It hits theaters here on June 1st (in the US)

@riot: I guess maybe don't bash a movie you haven't even seen yet. Like I said, it's not really some patriotic flick; it just shows the raw face of how lost and shocked a nation can feel. Except for the end with the passengers, I suppose.

Caught the premiere at AMC Theatres and honestly? Total letdown. I actually dug up more intel for my thesis than what they managed to show in this movie. Feels like a low-budget production all over. Everything just unfolds inside some control tower rooms—super boring.👎 👎

Jeffrey Newman87 said:Wait, seriously, did nobody actually watch this movie?

Well, I did! Yeah. Like, it's worth a watch if you have the time, but don't go expecting some deep, cinematic masterpiece or anything—it's just your standard, run-of-the-mill Hollywood thriller. Honestly, I actually dug it because I didn't go in expecting much to begin with!

Solid enough.
The whole scene where they hijacked the plane was just too much for me to handle.

There's enough material here for a decent mid-length feature—stretched out to a full movie, perhaps. It’s not uninteresting, but it isn't quite ready for a feature film.

Watched it today... It’s a solid film. Nothing groundbreaking, mind you, but I was fully expecting some over-the-top Hollywood melodrama. Instead, it leans much more toward a documentary style, which makes it quite pleasant to watch and keeps the tension high. All in all, a good one. 👍

Pretty solid movie.
I have a few gripes, though—mainly with the script. I wasn't a huge fan of how much focus is placed on air traffic control and the controllers working that day right at the start, only for us to shift over to what was happening on Flight 93 later on. In the final half hour, the controllers basically drop out of the picture entirely, and you lose that thread. It felt like a bit of a narrative gap to me.

That said, everything else works well, and I’d definitely recommend giving it a watch. Like I mentioned before, there isn't any forced patriotism here; it's just a look at ordinary people caught in the most unexpected and stressful situation imaginable.

Rating: 4

I'm not really a fan of movies where everything ends perfectly on a silver platter 😬

...I don't even know where to start... maybe at the beginning, when a failed hero recites prayers from the Quran while cruising through a total New York City vibe, with streets that look like veins in some massive organism... it's a tragicomic mess of the American system (like during those military exercises where they're still being hit by Russians 🙄)... the sheer scale of this hellish idea is massive. It’s a brilliant parable about an airplane vanishing from radar and becoming non-existent until it hits CNN... or those final scenes where everyone is praying for the same thing at once... some in English, others in Arabic... you have to wonder if even the powers above were just as confused as we were. Greengrass has an eye for detail and knows exactly how much to give you; he understands that seeing those towers flickering in the background through a window is more unsettling than the actual fireballs of judgment day. Maybe he could have delayed the climax a bit—pushed it to the three-quarter mark instead of halfway through—but there's no use splitting hairs now. Great film regardless...

Jose Miller17 said:...I'm not even sure where to start...maybe from the beginning, when that failed hero recites a prayer from the Quran while the streets of New York City look like veins in some massive organism...that tragic chaos within the American system (like those military exercises where they're still dealing with simulated Russian threats 🙄)...the sheer scale of such a hellish concept...it's a brilliant parable when an airplane vanishes from radar and nobody knows where it is, much like a society where nothing truly exists until it hits CNN...or those final scenes where everyone is praying for the exact same thing at once...some in English, others in Arabic...you have to wonder if even the powers above weren't clear on what was happening in that moment...Greengrass has such an eye for detail and understands pacing perfectly...he knows that seeing the towers just for a split second in the background through a window is more haunting than any fireball of judgment...maybe he could have delayed the climax a bit—pushed it to the three-quarter mark instead of halfway through—but I'm splitting hairs now...it's a great film regardless...

YES!

👍

So, I’m currently wading through the 9/11 Commission Report, and man, I gotta say... reading how everything went down on all those flights, especially Flight 93, is just heavy. It's brutal. I haven't sat down to watch the movie yet, but honestly, after seeing all your takes here, I feel like I probably should go check it out.

Honestly though? Just reading those cockpit transcripts is enough for me.

mellowraven22

The movie was absolute garbage.

mgalesic said:The movie sucks.

Great, thanks for that deep and meaningful critique explaining why the movie is bad.🙄
btw, I watched this documentary about "Flight 93" last night where they interviewed the families of the victims. Just like the movie shows, those passengers figured out via phone calls that the Twin Towers had been hit. You could tell their fear turned into actual courage. One guy told his wife over the phone that they had to do something—they couldn't just sit there and wait for these terrorists to crash the plane, especially since they knew from what happened with the other two planes that "Let 93" was part of a bigger plan. One scene really got to me, where a woman called her husband from the plane all the way in California. It was super early, maybe 4 AM, so he was still asleep. She left him a message saying she had a little problem but not to worry and that she loved him. He didn't hear it until much later... Honestly, I think the documentary was more interesting than the movie. I guess the movie helps you visually feel the horror of what they went through, though. At the end of the doc, they confirmed the plane crashed because the passengers fought their way into the cockpit; the families had exclusive access to the "black box" recordings, so they actually heard the struggle and the voices from inside. No F-16 brought that plane down. The Falcon jets were like 20 minutes away when it happened. Also, a couple flying a private plane saw "Let 93" wobbling around at 11:00, looking totally unstable. Anyway, Oliver Stone's "WTC" comes out in theaters in 20 days, and it’s supposed to show everything from the perspective of an NY police officer who survived under the ruins of the Twin Towers (Nicolas Cage is playing him).

There’s some movie called Let 93 playing on TV this Monday.

Does anyone know much about it?

That isn't United 93, it's the flight that fought back...

Greengrass mentioned how those passengers were essentially the very first citizens of the post-9/11 world. By the time their plane actually lifted off the runway—after sitting there for a 45-minute delay, no less—one WTC tower had already been hit and the Pentagon was already under attack. While everyone down on the ground was still stumbling around in total confusion, wondering what on earth was happening or who was behind it all, those folks on that flight already knew exactly what kind of reality they were facing.

If my memory serves me right, that plane slammed into the ground at about 622 miles mph, leaving pretty much nothing left of it. It’s funny because conspiracy theorists love to jump on that fact, using it as "proof" in their little theories to claim the plane wasn't even there in the first place. 🙄

Check out this article from Vanity Fair (you can actually listen to the recordings of the NORAD controllers too):