Firetop

Watched another Amazon DVD rental film yesterday - Flight 93. The story of the passengers onboard Flight 93 on September 11th who stormed their aircraft after it was taken over by terrorists, albeit with tragic consequences when they crashed into a Pennsylvania hillside. I should say ‘allegedly stormed’ because there a quite a few conspiracy theories floating about suggesting that the plane might have actually been shot down by US fighters on an intercept order, but conspiracies follow everything to do with 9/11 don’t they… and there’s no doubt from telephone recordings that the passengers did mount some kind of bold struggle to regain control of the flight.

All in all Flight 93 did make me think quite a bit about what I’d do in such a situation, particularly if my family was with me. The futility of the passengers calling their loved ones on the ground was pretty awful, especially the woman who just left a message for her man because he was in the shower. As a film however, you don’t really learn any more than you did in the press at the time, because there isn’t any more to know; an aeroplane carrying around forty people realised that flighting for their lives was their only hope, made desperate calls to their families to say goodbye, before bravely charging down the plane to the cockpit armed with a trolley, hot water and coke cans.

The film is really not very well produced even if it does portray the facts as officially reported, that probably has more to do with the budget though. Flight 93 is very reminiscent of the type of film you’ll see shown as a Channel Five film premier one weekday night – a feeling increased by the on-screen ‘historical reminder text’ at the very end; reminiscent of old classic ‘tragedy re-told’ films from the 1970s. I think it could have been done better, the innocent people who died on board probably deserved more.

Factual Reports of Flight 93 and its passengers

Bookmark to: