World Trade Center (2006)

Directed by Oliver Stone. Starring Michael Peña, Nicolas Cage, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello, Jay Hernandez, Jon Bernthal, Nicholas Turturro, Danny Nucci, Peter McRobbie, Donna Murphy, Michael Shannon, Stephen Dorff, Brad William Henke, William Mapother, Frank Whaley. [PG-13]

Oliver Stone’s well-meaning but ineffectual 9/11 tribute is at least constructed with skill and purpose, and is (for the director) decidedly apolitical. Focus falls primarily on two members of the Port Authority Police who head for the North Tower of the World Trade Center after the first plane hits, and get trapped in an elevator shaft after the South Tower collapses. Just as the film toggles between grueling scenes in the hopeless dark beneath the rubble and overwrought domestic dramas of family members at home pacing and fretting, the tone keeps switching between reverent solemnity and manipulative melodrama. Some will argue how much (or little) it exploits tragedy for harrowing “entertainment value”, but the filmmakers’ hearts at least seem to be in the right place—they just can’t figure out how to make this salute to the brave first responders commercially viable without sacrificing credibility and tastefulness. Written by Andrea Berloff. Jon Bernthal’s first feature film role.

50/100