Reviews: United 93

[Janice]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hollywoodreporter/photos/2006/04/united93_366x156.jpg
Panicked passengers wait aboard United Airlines Flight 93.


United 93

TheHollywoodReporter.com

Bottom line: Unflinching account of the terror aboard the fourth hijacked plane on Sept. 11 provokes deep, disturbing emotions.

Press notes for motion pictures are usually filled with dispensable, self-congratulatory puffery, but the one for the soul-searing film "United 93" contains this trenchant comment from its English writer-director, Paul Greengrass: Speaking of the 40 individuals aboard United Airlines Flight 93, the fourth hijacked plane on that day of infamy, Sept. 11, 2001, he notes that these were the only passengers and crew members on any of those ill-fated flights who knew about the other planes having been used as weapons and realized what was happening to them.

"They were the first people to inhabit the post-9/11 world," Greengrass says. These were the first to react to the worldwide conflict we find ourselves in today. Within the microcosm of that reaction, Greengrass has made an emphatic political document, a movie about defiance against tyranny and terrorism.

How many moviegoers will be willing to endure "United 93"? I suspect many will, but what that adds up to in terms of boxoffice is anybody's guess. Understandably, controversy engulfs this film. Is now the right time for such a film? Why make the film at all? These are legitimate questions. No one possesses a "right" answer. But Greengrass has made not only a thoroughly fact-checked film but a film that uncontrovertibly comes from the heart.

Greengrass wants the 91 minutes United 93 was in the air to speak to our tenuous situation in a scary, riven world. A previous film by him anticipates this work. The invaluable "Bloody Sunday" (2002), shot as if it were made by a camera crew at the time, dramatized a 1972 incident in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, where 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators were shot and killed by British soldiers. Here again he takes a hard look at a cataclysmic event to provoke dialogue.

To keep things as accurate as possible, Greengrass reportedly interviewed more than 100 family members and friends of those who perished. He hired flight attendants and commercial airline pilots to play those roles; hired several civilian and military controllers on duty on Sept. 11, including the FAA's Ben Sliney, to play themselves; culled facts from the 9/11 Commission Report; and rehearsed and shot his actors in an old Boeing 757 at England's Pinewood Studios.

Even Barry Ackroyd's hand-held cinematography, John Powell's muted, anxious score and the plane set fixed to computer-controlled motion gimbals to simulate the pitch and roll of the aircraft urge the viewer to think of this as a you-are-there experience. Yet no one really knows what happened on United 93. We have evidence from phone calls made from the plane and those interviews, but that's where it ends. And that is where an artist can pick up the story.

This is what it probably was like, and the experience overwhelms. Time passes in weird ways. The four nervous terrorists wait seemingly forever to make their move. The panicked passengers wait seemingly forever to make theirs. Helplessness engulfs us, then determination takes hold.

During these breathless moments, Greengrass cuts away to the desperation and confusion in airport control towers, the FAA's overwhelmed operations command center in Herndon, Va., and the military's unprepared operations center at the Northeast Air Defense Sector in upstate New York. For all their monitors and electronic equipment, there is a horrific, low-tech moment when controllers at Newark Airport get a perfect view across the Hudson of the second plane hitting a World Trade Center tower. No one can even speak.

In years to come, United 93 may enter our mythology in ways unimaginable. But for now, we have a starting point. "United 93" is a sincere attempt to pull together the known facts and guesses at the emotional truths as best anyone can. Then, in the movie's final moments, the impact of the heroism aboard United 93 becomes startlingly clear.

[Brian Damage]

Thank Janice, truth be told, if this was said to be the best movie ever, I still am not ready to see it.

[Janice]

Thank Janice, truth be told, if this was said to be the best movie ever, I still am not ready to see it.
I guess I'm undecided. For some reason that's unclear to me, I sort of feel a duty to see it, for all those lost on 9/11. Yet, when I watch scenes from the movie on tv, my eyes tear up. They're tearing up now. I don't know if I could handle it.

I don't know. Hubby says no way.

[Brian Damage]

I guess I'm undecided. For some reason that's unclear to me, I sort of feel a duty to see it, for all those lost on 9/11. Yet, when I watch scenes from the movie on tv, my eyes tear up. They're tearing up now. I don't know if I could handle it.

I don't know. Hubby says no way.

I'm with your husband on this one. It is one thing if all proceeds of this film went to all the victims families and the police and firefighter benevolent associations. However, I see this as nothing more than a studio trying to cash in on the tragedy first.

[Janice]

http://www.variety.com/VE1117930271.html (http://www.variety.com/VE1117930271.html)

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Cheyenne Jackson, in cap, and Christian Clemenson, right, are among the passengers plotting to fight back in Paul Greengrass' 'United 93.'http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/23382/20020917003022/www.variety.com/graphics/spacer.gifhttp://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/23382/20020917003022/www.variety.com/graphics/spacer.gif

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Omar Berdouni portrays one of the hijackers in the 9/11 thriller.http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/23382/20020917003022/www.variety.com/graphics/spacer.gif


Taut, visceral and predictably gut-wrenching, "United 93," Paul Greengrass' already much-debated look at Sept. 11, trades in some emotional impact for authenticity, capturing the overwhelming sense of chaos surrounding that day's harrowing events. The result is a tense, documentary-style drama that methodically builds a sense of dread despite the preordained outcome. While media attention has focused on reaction to the movie's trailer, strong ratings for earlier Flight 93 TV projects suggest there will be considerable curiosity, morbid or otherwise, about "United 93" that should translate into robust box office.

Indeed, a certain myopia seems to have overtaken those wringing hands over the "Is it too soon?" question. A&E's "Flight 93," a restrained and impressive achievement on a made-for made-for-TV movie budget, and Discovery Channel's docudrama "The Flight That Fought Back" were major successes for those cable networks.

Inevitably, seeing the same events on a theatrical canvas provides an additional wallop, though writer-director Greengrass' approach -- from the jittery camera to the dozen or so aviation and military personnel who play themselves -- feels more determined to create a "You are there" sensation than to send the audience sobbing into the night. By contrast, a key element of both "Flight 93" and "The Flight That Fought Back," which employed chilling snippets of real audio, depicted friends and relatives of the doomed passengers on the ground, a nuance this telling fastidiously avoids.

Unfolding in real time once the plane is airborne for its 91-minute flight, "United 93" opens with the terrorists rising for morning prayer and blase passengers and crew engaging in mundane chit-chat that suggests just another ordinary day.

Oscillating between the plane's occupants, military personnel at the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) and air traffic controllers in New York and Boston, Greengrass (whose credits include "Bloody Sunday") uses a hyper-natural style, chronicling the gradual dawning that the country was facing an unprecedented attack.

The controllers, in fact, at first can barely grasp that a hijacking is in progress, musing it must have been 20 years since the last one. In perhaps the starkest moment, they sit in stunned silence, mouths agape, when the second commandeered jet crashes into the World Trade Center, while an officer at NEADS bellows about being unable to defend the entire eastern seaboard with only four fighter planes.

To pound home the accuracy Greengrass sought, those participating as themselves include Ben Sliney, the Federal Aviation Administration's national operations manager, an adviser on the film who, remarkably, started in that job on Sept. 11; and NEADS Maj. James Fox.

It's roughly an hour into the film before the hijackers brutally leap into action, slaying the pilots and a random passenger. Initially terrified, the other passengers confer with loved ones on the ground via cell and air phones, with Thomas E. Burnett (Christian Clemenson) the first to recognize that their flight is another suicide mission and they must band together to retake the plane.

From the beginning, there has been something tragic and uplifting about Flight 93, the one plane that failed to strike its intended target thanks to the passengers' heroic stand. In that sense, the story became a symbol easily elevated to near-mythical status through facile catchphrases ("Let's roll") and newsmagazines eager to interview surviving relatives.

Greengrass, however, intently delivers a raw, unadorned view, letting the story's inherent drama speak for itself. That much of the cast is unidentifiable only adds to the reality he is determined to unflinchingly convey.

Even with its copious research, the film departs from prior accounts in several subtle and not-so-subtle ways, reminding us (as does a closing disclaimer) that this re-creation is just that -- based on the best available evidence, with inferences and composites constructed for dramatic effect.

Those qualifications aside, "United 93" is technically razor-sharp, from the editing and sound to John Powell's urgent but not intrusive score. Nor is the film's violence any more or less graphic than it needs to be, though something is lost in the one-sided exchanges with loved ones, as passengers come to grips with their likely fate and bid them farewell.

As for that aforementioned closing scroll, "United 93" carries a dedication to those slain on Sept. 11 and a note that the movie was in no way sponsored by United Airlines. Consider it a tribute to the film that each of those postscripts couldn't possibly feel more redundant.

[Janice]

The continuing terror of United 93

'The most terrifying movie in years'

Peter Simpson
The Ottawa Citizen

http://media.canada.com/20a2551e-5896-49b4-95bb-f42cc01af479/93.gif
In a scene from United 93, passengers launch their heroic attack on the cockpit, causing the aircraft to crash in an empty field instead of another building full of people.

United 93 is the most terrifying movie I've seen in years. This is not a blurb of movie-critic hyperbole: It's a measured response to a movie that is too real, too recent, and too close to be seen, to be felt, as entertainment. It's more like group therapy: we all sit together to face this demon, to relive these horrible minutes in the hope of a collective release, or at least insight.

United 93 succeeds because director Paul Greengrass gives us a relentless, yet restrained, retelling of a day when we all stood together and watched a lot of innocent people die, a day when everything really did change -- and five years later continues to change. Greengrass does nothing to get in the way of the story. There is no melodrama, no romanticism, no torquing special effects, and no glimmering movie stars.

The lone affectation is the use of handheld cameras, which give the film a jumpy volatility that reflects our shared helplessness, that fact we know what's coming and can't do a damn thing about it.

There's no back story: the movie begins early that morning and ends the instant the plane crashes into an empty field.

Those heartbreaking phone calls by doomed passengers to their loved ones on the ground are used more for narrative than dramatic effect: through them the passengers learned that planes have crashed into the World Trade Center. That changed everything on board, and in all likelihood saved many lives.

I expected to feel voyeuristic watching United 93, but in fact it was cathartic. Though the film is frequently claustrophobic -- most scenes are shot in the cabin of the aircraft or in windowless command centres -- it somehow speaks to the larger awareness that the attack was aimed not just at the thousands who died, but at our culture, our freedom, our future.

Well-told stories are essential to our collective understanding of what it all means.

Everybody with a heart was shaken that day, and there's a release in seeing the events portrayed like this, without judgment or sentiment. The film seeks neither to demonize nor sanctify, and restates the facts in almost documentary fashion.

The approach is profound in ways large and small.

There's a curious relief in seeing that everybody, even the most experienced aviation and military officials, reacted with the same disbelief as the second plane hit the World Trade Center, even though another had crashed into the towers moments earlier. My naivete was our naivete: we all shared that woefully misplaced complacency.

That footage of the second jet circling toward the towers -- the CNN broadcast is the only glimpse of the other three doomed aircraft seen in United 93 -- is the most chilling image of our era. It is cut into my memory like an etching on steel, both permanent and cold.

I remember the hollow feeling that followed, the ungodly mix of horror and helplessness, the draconian possibility that what we were seeing was "real world" and not a simulation or camera trick. I remember the dull realization that hate remains a powerful force, and is not safely locked in our history books like some deadly animal at the zoo.

There it was before our very eyes, live on television, throwing jets full of innocent people into buildings full of ordinary people. How could such hate exist, and how could it strike with such conviction at the heart of Western society? How could this happen on this sunny, beautiful September morning?

Hate breeds hate, often under the red banner of vengeance, but Paul Greengrass doesn't fly that flag. We all know the hijackers die in the film, but there's no great moment of triumph, no grand and righteous blast of the trumpets. In the end there is only silence, and blackness. Then it's over.

Except in real life, of course, where it's not over, where it's never over. That's why well-told stories are so critically important. They may not bring us understanding of why things happen, but they show us why our response to terror is what keeps us free, that we must stand and spit in the face of hate. The passengers on Flight 93 realized their captors were determined to kill them all and a lot more people on the ground below. So they fought back, without weapons or hope, and sacrificed their own lives to save many others.

The feeling that hangs over United 93 is not suspense, but rather a rank sense of the inevitable, of the indifferent march of the facts toward a bitter fate.

Late in the flight we see both hijackers and passengers praying to God, in a macabre competition for divine intervention. We know there will be no salvation, that there is only truth and history, so real and so close that we can still feel its chill.

That's what makes United 93 so terrifying, in a way that no "horror movie" could equal.

[Liza]

I don't think it's a studio really trying to cash in. It just so happens that they're the ones that can afford to make this film right now. And it is a story that has to be told. Not everyone's ready to see it, and I can totally understand that. But I do want to see it. I think we do owe it to those passengers who saved who knows how many lives by what they did. The least I can do is pay the five bucks to the hollywood people and see what is probably the closest anyone's ever going to come to what really happened that day.

[Janice]

I don't think it's a studio really trying to cash in. It just so happens that they're the ones that can afford to make this film right now. And it is a story that has to be told. Not everyone's ready to see it, and I can totally understand that. But I do want to see it. I think we do owe it to those passengers who saved who knows how many lives by what they did. The least I can do is pay the five bucks to the hollywood people and see what is probably the closest anyone's ever going to come to what really happened that day.
That's exactly how I feel. I feel an obligation to see the movie. As for the studio making a profit...I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The families of the victims are okay with the movie, so who am I to have an issue. I heard today that 10% of the profits are going to charity. Not often we hear something like that.

[Mr. Stefani]

I won't be seeing it. I don’t know, i just can't sit through it. i cant even watch the footage of it. I know it's supposed to be about the courage of the people on that flight, but still. I know too many people who were personally affected by it all. My best friend lost his brother in the trade center. At dinner the other night his mom was talking about it. Her exact words were it's hard enough for her to get out of bed everyday, a movie like that isn't going to help in the healing process. On the radio this morning they were talking about it. One guy said it's not appropriate while the other said it's just like making a movie out of the titanic or pearl harbor...i disagree. The people that lost loved ones didn't have to witness that on live television and have to relive footage of it for years to come. im not making any sense ill shut up lol

[Liza]

I won't be seeing it. I don’t know, i just can't sit through it. i cant even watch the footage of it. I know it's supposed to be about the courage of the people on that flight, but still. I know too many people who were personally affected by it all. My best friend lost his brother in the trade center. At dinner the other night his mom was talking about it. Her exact words were it's hard enough for her to get out of bed everyday, a movie like that isn't going to help in the healing process. On the radio this morning they were talking about it. One guy said it's not appropriate while the other said it's just like making a movie out of the titanic or pearl harbor...i disagree. The people that lost loved ones didn't have to witness that on live television and have to relive footage of it for years to come. im not making any sense ill shut up lol

Actually, those who survived Pearl Harbor and the Titanic did have to sit through footage of it for several years to come - but it was so long ago now that most of the people who were there are long gone.

But anyways, like I said before, I can totally understand and respect why some people are not ready to watch it. I am very fortunate that I did not personally know anyone that died that day. One of my dad's coworkers was on flight 93, but I never met him. I want to see the film and I'm ready for it. I can understand why others are not, and I don't think anyone would try to push them.

[Liza]

That's exactly how I feel. I feel an obligation to see the movie. As for the studio making a profit...I don't think there's anything wrong with that. The families of the victims are okay with the movie, so who am I to have an issue. I heard today that 10% of the profits are going to charity. Not often we hear something like that.

I hadn't heard that, but I am very glad of it. That's the right thing to do. And I don't mind that they're not donating all of it - you know, these people need to earn their livings too. They're in the entertainment industry and I say kudos to them for using their art to tell a story that has to be told.

If your husband doesn't want to see it, I don't think you should try and talk him into it. But if you feel you're ready, don't let him talk you out of it. Go with a girlfriend or neighbor or someone. I'm probably going to go with my dad, as my mom doesn't want to see it.

[Mr. Stefani]

Actually, those who survived Pearl Harbor and the Titanic did have to sit through footage of it for several years to come - but it was so long ago now that most of the people who were there are long gone.



huh? theres no actual footage of that ship going down. all they got were names in the paper.

[Brad Russ]

I'm probably going to go see it next week on a Tuesday or Wednesday, when the theatre won't be so packed. I'm sure it'll be a tough thing to sit through, but I think I'll be able to handle it.

[Auntie]

http://heavenhelpus.org/jesus2_small.jpgI'm probably going to go see it next week on a Tuesday or Wednesday, when the theatre won't be so packed. I'm sure it'll be a tough thing to sit through, but I think I'll be able to handle it.
I wasn't going to see it. But now I think I will. It's a part of history that people have forgottened. Just think about it, on that day, someone had their mother, father, sister, brother, wife, husband, cousin,etc murdered(in the buildings, in the planes, the Pentagon(sorry if the spelling is wrong), and not to mention those who fought back on flight 93. May God bless them and their families, and may God bless America:candle:patriot:

[TVFactFan]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hollywoodreporter/photos/2006/04/united93_366x156.jpg
Panicked passengers wait aboard United Airlines Flight 93.


United 93

TheHollywoodReporter.com

Bottom line: Unflinching account of the terror aboard the fourth hijacked plane on Sept. 11 provokes deep, disturbing emotions.

Press notes for motion pictures are usually filled with dispensable, self-congratulatory puffery, but the one for the soul-searing film "United 93" contains this trenchant comment from its English writer-director, Paul Greengrass: Speaking of the 40 individuals aboard United Airlines Flight 93, the fourth hijacked plane on that day of infamy, Sept. 11, 2001, he notes that these were the only passengers and crew members on any of those ill-fated flights who knew about the other planes having been used as weapons and realized what was happening to them.

"They were the first people to inhabit the post-9/11 world," Greengrass says. These were the first to react to the worldwide conflict we find ourselves in today. Within the microcosm of that reaction, Greengrass has made an emphatic political document, a movie about defiance against tyranny and terrorism.

How many moviegoers will be willing to endure "United 93"? I suspect many will, but what that adds up to in terms of boxoffice is anybody's guess. Understandably, controversy engulfs this film. Is now the right time for such a film? Why make the film at all? These are legitimate questions. No one possesses a "right" answer. But Greengrass has made not only a thoroughly fact-checked film but a film that uncontrovertibly comes from the heart.

Greengrass wants the 91 minutes United 93 was in the air to speak to our tenuous situation in a scary, riven world. A previous film by him anticipates this work. The invaluable "Bloody Sunday" (2002), shot as if it were made by a camera crew at the time, dramatized a 1972 incident in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, where 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators were shot and killed by British soldiers. Here again he takes a hard look at a cataclysmic event to provoke dialogue.

To keep things as accurate as possible, Greengrass reportedly interviewed more than 100 family members and friends of those who perished. He hired flight attendants and commercial airline pilots to play those roles; hired several civilian and military controllers on duty on Sept. 11, including the FAA's Ben Sliney, to play themselves; culled facts from the 9/11 Commission Report; and rehearsed and shot his actors in an old Boeing 757 at England's Pinewood Studios.

Even Barry Ackroyd's hand-held cinematography, John Powell's muted, anxious score and the plane set fixed to computer-controlled motion gimbals to simulate the pitch and roll of the aircraft urge the viewer to think of this as a you-are-there experience. Yet no one really knows what happened on United 93. We have evidence from phone calls made from the plane and those interviews, but that's where it ends. And that is where an artist can pick up the story.

This is what it probably was like, and the experience overwhelms. Time passes in weird ways. The four nervous terrorists wait seemingly forever to make their move. The panicked passengers wait seemingly forever to make theirs. Helplessness engulfs us, then determination takes hold.

During these breathless moments, Greengrass cuts away to the desperation and confusion in airport control towers, the FAA's overwhelmed operations command center in Herndon, Va., and the military's unprepared operations center at the Northeast Air Defense Sector in upstate New York. For all their monitors and electronic equipment, there is a horrific, low-tech moment when controllers at Newark Airport get a perfect view across the Hudson of the second plane hitting a World Trade Center tower. No one can even speak.

In years to come, United 93 may enter our mythology in ways unimaginable. But for now, we have a starting point. "United 93" is a sincere attempt to pull together the known facts and guesses at the emotional truths as best anyone can. Then, in the movie's final moments, the impact of the heroism aboard United 93 becomes startlingly
clear.



I just don't understand why someone woulde pay MONEY to see a Movie about 9/11. Watching something about 9/11 for FREE is bad enough but to go and pay money at a movie theather about that horrible day in American History? Makes No sense at all.

[Ireneparalegal]

I just don't understand why someone woulde pay MONEY to see a Movie about 9/11. Watching something about 9/11 for FREE is bad enough but to go and pay money at a movie theather about that horrible day in American History? Makes No sense at all.
People paid to see movies abt Pearl Harbor, Vietnam, WWII movies...it's their choice.

[TVFactFan]

People paid to see movies abt Pearl Harbor, Vietnam, WWII movies...it's their choice.


But to have experienced that day, what is it to see that you don' already know? Most People who paid to see Pearl Harbor wasn't around at the time. Now I can see someone who was born after 2001 buying a DVD to see a 9/11 movie but for someone who was old enough to feel the sadness of that day should not be paying money to see something so depressing

[seventies_sitcoms]

I'm not saying they should've never have made a movie about this, but they could've waited about 20-30 years. It is still too recent for this to happen. If I had a relative on the plane I would be pissed. Sure, most of the families aren't going to protest because they probably don't want to make the Hollywood fatcats look bad.

[TVFactFan]

I'm not saying they should've never have made a movie about this, but they could've waited about 20-30 years. It is still too recent for this to happen. If I had a relative on the plane I would be pissed. Sure, most of the families aren't going to protest because they probably don't want to make the Hollywood fatcats look bad.


That's what makes the movie A DUMB IDEA because they lost sight of the fact that there are families of those killed on Flight 93 who would not want a movie made based on that horrible day.

[~LadyJess~]

That's what makes the movie A DUMB IDEA because they lost sight of the fact that there are families of those killed on Flight 93 who would not want a movie made based on that horrible day.

The producers went and got the approval of the family members of all the passengers on Flight 93 and none of them objected to the movie. For that reason, even if certain people are not ready to see it, I think it was ok to go ahead with production.

[Liza]

huh? theres no actual footage of that ship going down. all they got were names in the paper.

I didn't mean there was footage of the sinking itself, but there is still footage of the real Titanic when it set sail, and that was shown quite often on several different programs. But it's certainly not the same thing as the 9/11 footage, that I'll agree with.

[Liza]

The producers went and got the approval of the family members of all the passengers on Flight 93 and none of them objected to the movie. For that reason, even if certain people are not ready to see it, I think it was ok to go ahead with production.

That's very true. And not only did they not object, the general opinion was that the families wanted this film to be made as they wanted their relatives' stories to be remembered.

[passionsfan79]

I don't think I could sit there and watch it through theaters but I will proubly buy it when it comes out.

[ABlairican Pie]

I had to see the movie yesterday because I wasn't around a tv all day on 9/11, except at work for a while, so it was very difficult for me to fully comprehend what America was going through firsthand. I remember being shaken at the reports, I heard the destruction of the towers on the radio live on the bus on my way to work, I was trying to assess what was going on, what did people feel, etc.

Watching the movie last night brought back feelings of rage and hate at these dirtbags who invoked the name of God in the perpetration of crimes against humanity: just innocent victims on flights across the country. I was so ANGRY at these people, it almost made me feel like lashing out at Muslims and Arabs in general. One thing I could not stand in the reports of the victims of Flight 93 in their attempts to regain control was the sheeplike mantra of the hijackers as they fought against the takeover: "Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar (God is great, God is great)." HOW DARE THEY INVOKE THE NAME OF GOD???!!!!! :mad: :livid: Bastards. It just struck me that way. When I left the theater afterwards, I had to collect myself and remember, okay, not every Arab and Muslim is like that. People do terrible things in the name of Christ but it doesn't mean Christianity is itself evil.

[Janice]

'United 93' Presents a Painful Tribute

NEW YORK (AP) - Samuel Franco stood outside the ticket booth, trying to decide which showing of "United 93" he and his wife should catch. He considered 9:45 p.m., then thought better of it. Too close to bedtime. Would they be able to sleep?

Barbara Manton had just emerged into the sunny afternoon, heart still pounding, from the same Manhattan movie theater. She spoke of similar pre-movie deliberations: Her husband hadn't wanted to come at all. She had dragged him.

Rarely has a film, however critically praised, promised so much agony for viewers. "United 93" is 106 minutes of unrelenting pain with few precedents in cinematic history. And it raises questions about why we go to movies in the first place: Is it to be entertained? To be educated?

Or is it sometimes, in the words of another "United 93" moviegoer, something stronger: "To remember," said Gabrielle Hanna. "To document. To pay tribute."

One thing is certain: "United 93" is a unique film in many respects.
For one thing, there's the immediacy of its painful subject. "Most other world-shattering events have not been depicted so soon," says film historian Leonard Maltin. During World War II, Hollywood turned early U.S. defeats into patriotic rallying points: "Wake Island" (1942) and "Bataan" (1943) focused on heroism and the promise of ultimate victory.

And films began facing issues like racism and anti-Semitism in the late '40s and early '50s - but, Maltin says, "they don't compare to this film."

"There are so few direct comparisons to something like this," Maltin says. "This film is asking people to willingly face up to a tragic event that was deeply felt by virtually everyone in the world."

A more recent work that comes to mind is "Schindler's List," Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning 1993 Holocaust film. And yet the film came a half-century after the events. "'Schindler's List' tries to show us what it was like," said Maltin. "'United 93' reminds us what it was like."

Spielberg's film focused on an industrialist, Oskar Schindler, who saved more than 1,000 Jewish lives. "Even that film has a certain sense of a little bit of hope held out," says Jonathan Kuntz, who teaches film history at UCLA. And with other recent films like "Pearl Harbor" and "Munich," he says, "at least there was a second half of the movie where there was a chance for some payback and revenge."

"United 93," on the other hand, simply ends with that devastating crash in the Pennsylvania field - all on board killed, of course, on a day that also saw terrible death and destruction in New York and Washington.

And the reverberations of Sept. 11 continue to echo through our world, with no hint of resolution on the horizon. "9-11 has not been resolved in the American psyche," Kuntz says. "If it had, if all the terrorists had been wiped out, we'd be watching a different movie."

And so, we're left with 106 minutes of finely crafted horror, a film that New York Times critic Manohla Dargis called "the feel-bad American movie of the year." Yet it seems that so far, people are going to see "United 93" in spite of its wrenching subject matter - or because of it.

On Sunday, Universal Pictures reported a solid $11.6 million opening weekend, putting the film, made for a modest $15 million, at No. 2 on the box-office list. "I never expected we would do this kind of business," said Nikki Rocco, head of Universal distribution. She called it a "wonderful result" which showed that "it wasn't too soon for a film about Sept. 11."

Even so, "I can't imagine an 18-year-old guy taking his date to this movie," says Kuntz. The demographics bear him out - 71 percent of movie-goers the first weekend were 30 and older, Universal says, and only 11 percent saw it with a date, most going with a spouse or a friend.

Manton, 62, who looked shaken as she left the theater on Friday afternoon, said the movie was a positive step toward healing. "They shouldn't keep this from us," she said. "We all know what happened."

As for Hanna, who saw the film in the same theater, she felt stunned by the impact of footage of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center, shown in the film from the vantage of the Newark control tower. "I stopped breathing," said Hanna, executive director of the Provincetown International Film Festival. "It's as if it were happening again."

Franco, 29, remembers watching the second plane hit the trade center live on TV from his New York apartment. He said he and his wife had gone back and forth on whether to see "United 93." First she was reluctant, then he was.

But ultimately, he said, "it's important to never forget." In that sentiment, he's joined by another viewer, one who cooperated in the making of the film: David Beamer, father of Todd, one of the passengers who died on Flight 93. Asked by Larry King whether it was too soon for this film, he replied simply: "It's too soon to forget."

[Brian Damage]

Well, I went to see this movie despite big reservations and in all honesty, I think this movie was too intense for theaters. I am not saying this movie wasn't good, because I thought it was very well done, but in a dark theater with dolby surround sound, it just was too powerful. This movie is better to watch in the comfort of your own home on DVD.

The best part of the movie was all the scenes that took place in the air traffic control centers. Real dialogue from the airplanes that were hijacked were used. Actual sound bites of the terrorists were used as well. It made it that more chilling. All of the actors in this movie were unknowns, so it made it very believable.

Everybody knows how this incident ended, so I don't think I am ruining anything here. Right before flight 93 hits the ground, the screen goes black and becomes silent for about a minute. In the silence, I heard people crying in the audience. Believe me, this is a hard movie to watch. Maybe I am saying that because of the loss of my cousin that day in the Twin Towers. Two of my Uncles also escaped the attack as they were in building #7. The way I see it, movies are supposed to entertain and this movie wasn't for entertainment purposes. It was to inform more than anything else.

[Janice]

That sounds heavy-duty Brian. I do plan on seeing it as soon as my husband's eye ordeal is over.

I read that the man who played the main character in the air traffic control center is the actual man. He's not an actor.