WORLD TRADE CENTER

Director: Oliver Stone (Platoon, Nixon, JFK, many more)
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maria Bello, Maggie Gyllenhaal

Oliver Stone is on a losing streak. It happens to every actor and director at some point. I mean what did Martin Scorsese do in the 8 years between Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ? The Kings of Comedy? After Hours? Ugh.

Oliver Stones record since Nixon in 1995 includes such classics as Any Given Sunday, U Turn, and the spectacularly unsuccessful Alexander. Not good. Not good at all. I'm sad to say that World Trade Center is not Stone's Goodfellas. This is not a great movie at the end of a bad streak. This isn't even a particularly good movie.

Of course neither is this a terrible movie. I'm pretty sure that I'm not allowed to dislike a film about 9/11. I particularly doubt that I'm allowed to dislike a film that applaudes the police and other service personnel who risked their lives in the terrorist attacks. So just for the record, I also applaud those men and women. They deserve the attention that this film brings to them. They deserve even more than that actually. Unfortunately, that doesn't make this a good movie. Frankly, this was about as safe, mundane and generic a film as could be conceived about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and those brave, dutiful policemen and firemen, etc.

If you've read my review of the recently released film United 93, you'll know I harbored a number of concerns about what exactly that film was trying to accomplish. I wondered if that film was honoring heros, or just capitalizing on our bad memories to sell tickets. For the record I'm wondering again. I hope that there are noble reasons, but I highly doubt that nobility enters into the discussion of Hollywood boardrooms. I highly doubt nobility enters into any boardrooms, frankly.

Regardless, World Trade Center follows two port authority police officers trapped among the wreckage of the fallen buildings after the attack. They fight for survival while their grieving families worry about them. For 2 thirds of the film, Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena are unable to move so we see only close ups of their grime covered faces. It's a decent story. It's a good idea to tell about these guys doing their jobs and suffering for it. I just don't like how it came off. The movie felt tacky, made-for-TV to me. Characters were broad. Dialogue was bad. These lines have been delivered in a thousand other (mostly bad) films. There's nothing new here. There's not even anything of the same that's looked at in a different way. It's cookie-cutter. Oliver Stone played it incredibly safe. Let's say he played it conservatively. Conservative works for investing. Conservative may work in politics if that's your thing. Conservative doesn't really do much in art. Art's all about progress. Art's all about seeing something new.

So, sacrifice and forgivness. Almost all the best stories are about them. They're the heart of the Christian story. They're the heart of western art since well before Christianity. It's the best that any story can be about because they're the best that a person can do. This story is about sacrifice. It's just not a very good story about sacrifice.

Standouts: Occassional powerful moments peppered throughout the film.
Blowouts: Silly bad characters and dialogue like the marine who finds the trapped officers in the rubble.

Grade: C+