I'm actually confused about the grade to give this film. When I was watching it, I got caught up in it, yes, and I felt emotional and did actually cry at parts during the movie. Seeing the towers crumble in particular was a part that made me choke up because it brought me back to that day and how I could see the burning towers from my building. However, after the start of the movie, like everyone else has said, it just falls flat. The story felt long and drawn out; it felt much longer than the two hour running time. I knew from the beginning they would be rescued, and halfway through the movie I wished it would just speed it up and get them out. Unlike everyone else here, I actually thought the acting was terrible. I cringed every time Nicolas Cage opened his mouth, although that could be due to the whole casts TERRIBLE New York accents. As someone who has lived in NYC their whole life, I can promise that we do not sound like that. The accents really were something that bugged me throughout the whole film. I thought they sounded more like Boston accents than they did NY accents. I don't know though.. I enjoyed the film when I watched, but thinking back on it, I don't think I'd ever bother to watch it again. As other people said too, there are so many stories they could tell about 9/11 and they choose to focus on those two people who were buried beneath the rubble as opposed to people who did the saving.

I just read the Newsweek cover story on Oliver Stone and the film, and it didn't really answer any of said questions on the decision to cover this story.

The article seemed to be more in line with a lot of what was said in reviews: heaping praise upon Stone for keeping the film apolitical but not really questioning the nature of the story itself.

I wish more people would see this. I'd like to hear more opinions.

I appreciate the film for showing the bravery of every man and woman who protect us. That message comes out loud and clear imo and to me was more significant then anything else in the film, the best scenes really involved the search and rescue. The imagry was also pretty stunning and powerful

My problem is pretty much the rest of the film, the acting from the leads wasnt very strong, the movie went quite sappy a few 100 times, and it just kinda became uninteresting.

Grade - C+/B-

The worst movie of the year. I've never expected it to be that bad. It was so extremely boring and pretty much all of the dialogues are pure crap. Couldn't believe my ears when I heard some of the lines. And the Jesus scene.. D-

i think the only scene worse than the Jesus scenes (which at least had comical value) was the final scenes with the 'You kept me alive' thing. i just broke down and started laughing. i mean .. oh god ...

Uhh, but that implies the other scene had comical value as well!

no .. by that time ... you just didn't care anymore. you couldn't believe they actually threw in a line like that. at least the jesus think was a big WTF!?

If you guys were wondering, the Jesus hallucination actually did happen.

You mean... it wasn't a hallucination that Will Jimeno had... it was really the second coming of Jesus?!

Thanks to the dialogue way too many scenes had comical value.

I think it was solid. A little slow, but other than two scenes (the Jesus hallucination and Bello saying, "Get off your ass and come home" - both of which made me kind of laugh in a VERY serious film), I think the whole film is quite strong. I didn't see this bad acting or F-quality work that some people made it seem like. Better than United 93? Not really, but not too far off. It's a quality film, though.

B

B-


It's not a bad film, but a terribly weak effort compared to the very solid United 93. Cage is convincing, but the structure of the movie didn't work for me. Most of the time I was just bored. There are some powerful moments, especially in the beginning, but the whole part with the marine searching for the guys, the hallucination and Bello's character simply didn't do it for me at all. Maggie Gyllenhaal delivered the best turn in the whole film, though. I would go as far as nominating her for Best Supporting. The rest is just "okay".