Post by Holier than thou on Nov 7, 2006 12:26:16 GMT 3
www.2theadvocate.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/3600106.html
'Trade Center' moving and deeply personal
When Oliver Stone entered World Trade Center, he checked his politics at the door. Based upon the true story of Port Authority police officers John McLoughlin and William Jimeno, World Trade Center is not the over-the-top Oliver Stone known for such cinematic stunts as Natural Born Killers, The Doors and JFK.
There’s no hint of exploitation in World Trade Center. This moving drama turns from the big picture of 9/11 into an intensely personal account of two first responders and the families who agonized over their fate in the hours after the destruction of the World Trade Center towers.
Just as Stone reins his typically large director’s stamp in, Nicolas Cage is unusually subdued as McLoughlin. The veteran Port Authority sergeant Cage plays has no flash, nervous energy or neurosis, traits characteristic of his previous performances. Instead, McLoughlin is a good, serious cop, a pro who’d normally be prepared for whatever crisis came his way.
But Sept. 11, 2001, is something new. A plane plunges into one of the World Trade Center towers. The Port Authority police, McLoughlin frankly tells a fellow first responder as they speed to the scene, have no plan for a disaster this big.
World Trade Center establishes the normalcy of its first responders by introducing them as guys who get out of bed, go through their early morning routines, like everyone else. McLoughlin looks in on his sleeping kids before leaving the house to make his daily commute to New York. And fellow officer Jimeno, played by Michael Peña, gets a striking view of the still intact World Trade Center as he drives into the city.
McLoughlin wastes no words during the morning briefing he gives his Port Authority crew. The day’s priority is an 11-year-old runaway from Rhode Island. “As always,” McLoughlin says, “protect yourselves, watch each others back.”
But then the unbelievable happens. In the fog of a developing emergency, the Port Authority police know little other than the sketchy fact that a plane of some kind crashed into a Trade Center tower. At the chaotic scene, the officers’ own disbelief is echoed in the faces of people on the streets, some of whom, covered in blood and soot, escaped from the burning tower.
Cage and a small group of volunteers enter the tower and prepare to assist with its evacuation. In just minutes, it seems, the tower crashes upon them, trapping them in ruble. The men who would be heroes are suddenly, like thousands of others, helpless victims.
Much of World Trade Center takes place in terrifying darkness. As Jimeno says, he and McLoughlin are alive in hell. It’s left to the two of them to keep each other awake, alive and sane. Cage and Peña, restricted to acting from the neck up, render the stricken officers’ struggle extremely moving.
Stone and screenwriter Andrea Berloff open the story up by chronicling the reactions of McLoughlin and Jimeno’s families in Goshen and Clifton, N.J. Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello, co-starring as the officers’ wives, express the spouses’ fear, strength, anger and glimpses of hope.
By personalizing the tragedy of 9/11 through fidelity to McLoughlin and Jimeno’s story, an unusually humble Stone mounts a first-class tale of the officers’ ability to endure and their rescuers’ dedication and courage. There’s no agenda in the film, no selfish, destructive political partisanship. Apparently made with noble intentions, World Trade Center is sure to make millions weep.
'Trade Center' moving and deeply personal
When Oliver Stone entered World Trade Center, he checked his politics at the door. Based upon the true story of Port Authority police officers John McLoughlin and William Jimeno, World Trade Center is not the over-the-top Oliver Stone known for such cinematic stunts as Natural Born Killers, The Doors and JFK.
There’s no hint of exploitation in World Trade Center. This moving drama turns from the big picture of 9/11 into an intensely personal account of two first responders and the families who agonized over their fate in the hours after the destruction of the World Trade Center towers.
Just as Stone reins his typically large director’s stamp in, Nicolas Cage is unusually subdued as McLoughlin. The veteran Port Authority sergeant Cage plays has no flash, nervous energy or neurosis, traits characteristic of his previous performances. Instead, McLoughlin is a good, serious cop, a pro who’d normally be prepared for whatever crisis came his way.
But Sept. 11, 2001, is something new. A plane plunges into one of the World Trade Center towers. The Port Authority police, McLoughlin frankly tells a fellow first responder as they speed to the scene, have no plan for a disaster this big.
World Trade Center establishes the normalcy of its first responders by introducing them as guys who get out of bed, go through their early morning routines, like everyone else. McLoughlin looks in on his sleeping kids before leaving the house to make his daily commute to New York. And fellow officer Jimeno, played by Michael Peña, gets a striking view of the still intact World Trade Center as he drives into the city.
McLoughlin wastes no words during the morning briefing he gives his Port Authority crew. The day’s priority is an 11-year-old runaway from Rhode Island. “As always,” McLoughlin says, “protect yourselves, watch each others back.”
But then the unbelievable happens. In the fog of a developing emergency, the Port Authority police know little other than the sketchy fact that a plane of some kind crashed into a Trade Center tower. At the chaotic scene, the officers’ own disbelief is echoed in the faces of people on the streets, some of whom, covered in blood and soot, escaped from the burning tower.
Cage and a small group of volunteers enter the tower and prepare to assist with its evacuation. In just minutes, it seems, the tower crashes upon them, trapping them in ruble. The men who would be heroes are suddenly, like thousands of others, helpless victims.
Much of World Trade Center takes place in terrifying darkness. As Jimeno says, he and McLoughlin are alive in hell. It’s left to the two of them to keep each other awake, alive and sane. Cage and Peña, restricted to acting from the neck up, render the stricken officers’ struggle extremely moving.
Stone and screenwriter Andrea Berloff open the story up by chronicling the reactions of McLoughlin and Jimeno’s families in Goshen and Clifton, N.J. Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello, co-starring as the officers’ wives, express the spouses’ fear, strength, anger and glimpses of hope.
By personalizing the tragedy of 9/11 through fidelity to McLoughlin and Jimeno’s story, an unusually humble Stone mounts a first-class tale of the officers’ ability to endure and their rescuers’ dedication and courage. There’s no agenda in the film, no selfish, destructive political partisanship. Apparently made with noble intentions, World Trade Center is sure to make millions weep.
