The Greatness of World Trade Center
By Eric Cox
World Trade Center
Released by Paramount Pictures
Rated PG-13 for intense and emotional content, some disturbing images, and language
More than a year ago, when the announcement was made that controversial filmmaker Oliver Stone would be directing a movie about the September 11 attacks, a chorus of protests rose up, largely from conservatives.
They said that Stone, an outspoken leftist and critic of U.S. foreign policy, would surely try to use the film as a political statement.
They were wrong.
Stone has made a stunning, deeply moving film about one of the most momentous days in American history.
Its genius lies in its limited scope. World Trade Center is not a comprehensive account of September 11 but rather focuses on the incredible true story of two Port Authority police officers, Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin, who were among the twenty people rescued from the rubble of the World Trade Center. Both men worked closely with Stone to help recreate what happened to them, and in capturing their extraordinarily harrowing experiences, the film offers not only a new and unique perspective on that particular day, but a universal testament to the indomitable resiliency of the human spirit.
Amazingly, with all the media coverage of the 9-11 attacks, the stories of Jimeno, McLoughlin, and the man who found them buried beneath the burning pile of rubble—a former Marine named Dave Karnes—have remained largely unknown until now.
World Trade Center is a movie about real heroism. Real courage. It isn’t maudlin or sentimental, and at times it is very difficult to watch. Some scenes are terrifying, but not because of blood and gore. There is very little of that in the movie. Instead, Stone makes us experience as much of what Jimeno and McLoughlin went through as can be conveyed on film.
But it is because Stone makes us endure those agonizing scenes in the pit of hell that the movie is in the end so tremendously inspirational. The attacks of 9-11 reminded us of how evil human beings can be. World Trade Center powerfully reminds us of how profoundly good they can be.
The film opens on what appears to be an average weekday morning for Jimeno (Michael Pena) and McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage). As McLoughlin drives to work, for instance, the top news story on his radio is about the citywide elections to be held that day.
Stone does such a good job of establishing the workaday world of the Port Authority police that he nearly succeeds in lulling us into the characters’ frame of mind. There is no ticking clock in the corner of the screen to build suspense; no musical cues to warn us when the terrible event will occur.
And when it does occur, Stone does not sensationalize it. He shows it to us from the officers’ perspectives. Jimeno hears a low rumble and sees the shadow of an airliner streak across the buildings across the street just before hearing the thunderous impact.
In the chaos and flow of misinformation that follow, Stone captures the confusion and sense of foreboding that we all felt in those minutes that seemed to stretch into eternity.
It has become a cliché that the heroes of September 11 were the men and women who ran into burning buildings while everyone else was running out. That moment is breathtakingly depicted in World Trade Center, causing us to see what a courageous—and deliberate—decision it was.
While they were inside the towers, explosions blasting and rumbling around them every few seconds, Jimeno, McLoughlin, and their colleagues did not have as much information about what was going on as those of us watching the events on television had. They did not know that the second tower had been hit. They did not know the Pentagon was ablaze. They were too busy preparing to climb the hundreds of flights of stairs to rescue as many people as possible.
And then, without warning, the buildings collapsed on top of them.
It’s a horrifying scene to witness, even though it lasts only a few seconds. Then, the screen goes black, and suddenly Jimeno and McLoughlin are trapped under slabs of concrete inside a dark, smoking, ash-filled heap of twisted steel.
Stone makes us remain in that hell hole with Jimeno and McLoughlin, and he makes us feel as excruciatingly helpless to assist them as they are to help one another. The scenes that take place inside the rubble of the towers are as gut-wrenching as anything I have ever seen on film.
World Trade Center also takes us inside the families of Jimeno and McLoughlin. Their spouses, Donna McLoughlin (Maria Bello) and Allison Jimeno (Maggie Gyllenhaal), are as helpless as their husbands, and watching them wait for word on their fate offers a small glimpse into the private hell that all the families of the victims of 9-11 must have gone through.
And then there is the amazingly heroic Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon), an accountant and former Marine who, after watching the tragedy unfold on television, puts on his old uniform, makes his way to Ground Zero, and does whatever he can to dig out the survivors.
Karnes isn’t portrayed as the typical swaggering, gun-toting Hollywood action hero. On the contrary, he is quiet, matter-of-fact, and deeply religious.
No movie—even one as impressive as World Trade Center—can give Jimeno, McLoughlin, and Karnes the tribute they deserve. But movies can draw us together, and as we approach the fifth anniversary of 9-11, the film makes us remember their sacrifices, and the sacrifices of many other men and women who are better people than most of us.
In that sense, World Trade Center is much like Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998). It gives us an opportunity to be genuinely thankful for acts of incredible courage performed on our behalves.
Oliver Stone deserves the ample criticism he has received for movies like JFK (1991), Natural Born Killers (1994), Nixon (1995), Any Given Sunday (1999), and Alexander (2004).
He also deserves great credit for World Trade Center. It is the best American movie that will be released this year—maybe the best American movie to be released for many years to come.
Eric Cox is a movie columnist for TAEmag.com.
