United 93

We went and saw a remarkable movie today...United 93. The movie is an incredible, straight-forward look at the mind-boggling events of Sept. 11, 2001. It is extremely well made and life-like. Some of the real people in the air traffic control and military, who participated in the chaos of that day portray themselves.

And chaos it was...the movie seems to capture that very well. There are no cheesy lines, stupid stunts or other Hollywoodisms and maybe that is one of the reasons it feels so true-to-life. The producers and director were meticulous in their efforts to base as much of the movie as possible on the known facts. Of course, a lot of the details of what actually took place on the airplane will always be unknown, but the way that they filled in the holes in the story seems to be a likely possibility for how the events might have played out. There is as little interpretation of the events as possible, leaving just a stand-alone and very powerful story. The storytelling relies on a lot of jerky, hand-held camera shots that make you feel how frantic and desperate the situation must have been. There is some graphic violence that is as disturbing as I have ever seen, not only because it is so brutal, but because it really happened!

It is emotionally chilling and gut-wrenching. It was so hard to watch some parts and yet it felt so important to me to watch those very parts. It allowed me to somehow, some way feel a slight hint of what these average and heroic everyday people went through and felt when they stared horrendous evil in the face. They were some of the first Americans to fight on the front lines of the war on terrorism and they deserve tremendous honor and respect.

I was deeply moved and affected by the whole experience as evidenced by my tears (for the record, my wife shed more than me...). Afterward, I felt more aware of my mortality and more aware of the tremendous courage and selflessness of which human-beings are capable.