“World Trade Center”
Directed by Oliver Stone
Paramount Pictures
2 OUT OF 5 STARS
One thing already seems too clear about Hollywood’s
versions of Sept. 11: It looks as if they’re going to keep
suffering from the same problems plaguing Holocaust movies for
decades.
Despite the difference in scale of the two tragedies, these new
films are hindered by the same old obstacles. The grave subject
matter makes realism the only socially accepted approach, leaving
little room for interpretation, and obligates any re-creation of
the events to focus on a set standard of themes ““ the shock,
confusion and perhaps even the heroism of the victims, ordinary
people faced with an extraordinary situation, and so forth. This
filmmaking doesn’t convey anything not already obvious to its
audience, and at best produces a successful feature-length
memorial.
Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center” not only
gets bogged down by the weight of its own memorializing, it fails
in its execution on several levels. This is surprising because the
film is based on a true story almost impossible to botch ““
the unbelievable rescue of Port Authority policemen John McLoughlin
and Will Jimeno (Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena, respectively) from
the rubble of Ground Zero.
Stone takes this story and replaces its very real and extreme
emotions with familiar Hollywood formula. The film’s opening
act, which follows Port Authority policemen called down to the
World Trade Center, attempts to recreate the morning of Sept. 11,
2001 but feels like a glossy movie every step of the way, complete
with agonizing slow-motion shots and an overwrought score.
Once the protagonists become trapped under a collapsed tower,
the focus shifts between their struggle to survive on a
meticulously crafted movie set and the cliched reactions of their
waiting families. Andrea Berloff’s wince-inducing script puts
stock dialogue into the mouths of stock characters. Flashback
scenes straight from “Lost” abound, though
“Lost” has the taste not to mark its flashbacks with
the dreamy-bright-light exposure technique.
Only strong acting manages to humanize these scenes: In
particular, Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal (respectively playing
the officers’ wives, Donna McLoughlin and Allison Jimeno)
bring a welcome ambiguity to their characters.
Then, as the film reaches its final act ““ the rescue of
the policemen ““ it inches toward a feel-good moral with a
bluntness Paul Haggis or Ron Howard would envy, and tells it to us
again with a feel-good Nicolas Cage voice-over to boot.
“World Trade Center” is made with honorable,
ambitious intentions, and is far from the outright garbage
frequently spit out by studios. Still, it is the worst kind of
movie Hollywood can make, because its simplification of such an
event into familiar terms asks to be taken seriously. And it will
be: Stone’s pedigree and the ability of the actors to sell
many scenes means the film will not only score at the box office,
but also as meaningful art, thus obscuring its danger as a
button-pushing opiate.