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Last week’s Amazon DVD rental supply included Oliver Stone’s ‘World Trade Center’ - a much more believable movie than I had anticipated. I always have some concerns about films depicting tragic real-life events – particularly those which have affected America; their re-enactment on screen is often over-glorified by directors for cinematic and nationalistic effect (e.g. Flight 93). World Trade Center seems, rather pleasingly, to be about as honest a film for such a tragic subject as could be made. Focusing on the story of two Port Authority Police officers buried alive when the Towers collapsed, I was pretty gripped throughout. I even watched it a second time with my wife and a third to hear the additional narration from the real-life police officers (who have bit parts themselves).

Nicolas Cage plays Sergeant John McLoughlin, an experienced officer who leads a team of Port Authority Police towards the emerging carnage at the World Trade Center on September 11th. Collecting rescue equipment at the base of the Towers, he hopes to rescue people from Tower Two (although at that point nobody had communicated the fact that both Towers had been hit – they even heard a wild rumour that a nuclear bomb had been dropped on Israel). Unfortunately for these brave officers they bear the full brunt of a collapsing Tower Two and as a result get buried alive in mesh of twisted burning metal and fallen concrete.

It is at this point that the film really takes on a life of its own, showing the desperation and pain of the two surviving officers McLoughlin and Will Jimeno (Michael Peña) – unable to move, bones broken, radios destroyed and about fifty feet between them and day light. Queue the story unfolding within the relevant families of those watching the horror unfold on Television, here again Oliver Stone does a good job of conveying the thoughts and mental anguish of the wives and children clinging to the belief that their husbands (and fathers) would be found. Clearly in this film there is some level of a happy ending – otherwise why tell it… but it is done tastefully with full recognition of the fact that fewer than twenty people were found in the aftermath of the Tower collapses.

Perhaps the weirdest tale to come out of World Trade Center movie is of the man responsible for finding McLoughlin and Jimeno after the official search had been called off that evening. Dave Karnes, an ex-Marine turned Connecticut office worker, watched the events unfolding on Television and felt moved to do something there and then. He left work, went to church to get blessed, went to the barber and got his hair ‘cut like a Marine’ and then proceeded to drive in full Marine combat gear to New York… in his Porsche. He got through all the barriers because of his attire and walked into the smoke filled Ground Zero rubble with a torch shouting ‘US Marines, if you can hear us, yell or tap!’. He located officers McLoughlin and Jimeno and raised the alarm – at a time when nobody else would have done, neither officer would probably have made it through the night given the seriousness of their injuries… weird.

Technorati Tags: world trade center, oliver stone, john mcloughlin, will jimeno, dave karnes, twin towers, movie review, film review

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