The film begins routinely, with McLoughlin, Jimeno and their fellow officers reporting to work for what they think will be another routine day. Stone wisely omits footage of the planes striking the towers, relying on Officer Will Jimeno’s reaction as the shadow of an airliner passes by ominously low to the ground. He also avoids lingering shots of the burning towers, focusing on the police officers’ shocked and numbed expressions as they approach the buildings. Even as McLoughlin and his small squad make their way into Tower One they’re still unaware of the scope of what they’re about to face. The team is met by a stream of people slowly evacuating the building. Some are covered in ash, some bruised, some bloodied, but all of them are wearing the same blindsided, stunned expression. Stone shoots the scene in slow motion, pointing out that the people who worked in the Towers – like the firemen and police who answered the emergency call – were of every race, creed and color. In one of the movie’s most stunning moments, Stone recreates the collapse of Tower One first through a deafening rumble (described later as sounding like 1,000 locomotives), then through special effects, as a tornado of smoke, ash and rubble rushes toward the camera.

Realizing what’s happened, McLoughlin orders his men to run for the elevator shaft. The screen goes black, and there’s an eternity of silence, leaving the audience wondering if the Officers made it to safety. Some do and some don’t.

When McLoughlin, Jimeno, and fellow officer Dominick Pezzulo (Jay Hernandez) regain consciousness, they discover they’ve been trapped by tons of twisted metal and crushed cement. Pezzulo manages to free himself and wants to go for help, but McLoughlin orders him to stay, citing the department’s credo that no Officer can leave another behind. It’s a decision he comes to regret. Pezzulo begins digging out Jimeno, but then the North Tower collapses around them. Pezzulo is critically injured and fires his weapon as his last act in the hope his friends will be rescued. Now trapped under even more debris, McLoughlin and Jimeno are faced with the prospect that they may never be rescued. McLoughlin calls on his training and experience to keep himself and the younger Jimeno alive. As time wears on and hope diminishes, it’s Jimeno who gains inner strength and ends up comforting McLoughlin, keeping the two of them conscious by engaging McLoughlin in conversations about his wife, children and experiences on the job.

As McLoughlin and Jimeno struggle to stay alive, their families anxiously wait for them to come home safely. Meanwhile, in Wilton, Connecticut, David Karns, an accountant and former marine, watches news clips of the attack with his co-workers and declares, “I don’t know if you know it yet, but this country is at war.” Convinced God wants him to go to Ground Zero to help, Karns gets his hair cut military style, dons his old uniform and manages to slip on to the sight undetected. He begins searching through the rubble, unaware that his presence will indeed have a direct effect on McLoughlin and Jimeno.

The acting ranges from phenomenal to serviceable. As the taciturn McLoughlin, Nicholas Cage spends most of the film in darkness, covered in grit, hovering in and out of consciousness while lying on his side. Cage can’t act and never could, so it’s a blessing that McLoughlin’s man of few words personality limits Cage’s dialogue. Cage mostly blinks, mutters hoarsely and flashes back to his idyllic home life. His acting prior to the attack and in flashbacks is equally wooden, and his forced “New Yawk” accent makes McLoughlin sound like a borderline cretin, which of course, he isn’t. It’s a difficult task to play a man who keeps his emotions in check, and Cage simply isn’t the right actor for the role. Fortunately, Michael Pena’s portrayal of Will Jimeno is exceptional. Pena also spends most of the movie in the same claustrophobic state, albeit laying on his back, but Pena’s character wears his emotions on his sleeve, and is more accessible, more human. Maggie Gyllenhaal, as Jimeno’s very pregnant wife, Allison, also seems to have problems deciding how to convey her working class accent. Her character’s emotions run the gamut from being petrified to hopeless to joyful, but Gyllenhaal can’t ride the emotional roller coaster. She can pull off hysterical and harried well enough, but seems stuck in one of those two modes throughout the movie. Like her husband John, Donna McLoughlin (Maria Bello) tends to suppress her emotions. Maria Bello succeeds in conveying her character’s need to remain strong for her family. When Donna is told John has walked away from tower’s collapse unscathed, then finds out it was a mistake and he’s still trapped beneath the rubble, she finally explodes, spewing out her pent up frustration. Bello, excellent in “A History of Violence,” another role where she stands by her man, is totally believable here -- strong, worried, anxious, angry and grateful. She and Pena carry the film.

Michael Shannon plays the shamanistic ex-Marine David Karns, one of the two men who found McLoughlin and Jimeno. It’s the type of disturbing performance audiences came to expect from the late Jack Palance, lock jawed, single-minded and intense. Shannon has the thankless task of portraying a man who was convinced that God spoke to him. It seems like a contrivance, but Karns’ true story is another thread in a saga rife with miracles. Under normal circumstances, Karns’ zealous pilgrimage might be viewed as well, crazy. Shannon’s performance nails Karns’ intensity and single-mindedness, but his thousand yard stare, and rigid, almost threatening posture occasionally make Karns seem creepy rather than heroic. He’s an ex-Marine, not the Terminator. Jason Thomas, the man who teamed up with Shannon to find the two officers is portrayed sympathetically by William Mapothar, best known for his chilling portrayal of Ethan on “Lost.” Someone forgot to tell Oliver Stone that the real Jason Thomas is black, but if Thomas (who was interviewed for the DVD extras) doesn’t mind, perhaps we shouldn’t either. The familiar faces in smaller roles play characters facing their own private hells and prove to be all too human. Nicholas Tuturro, a revelation in his role on “NYPD” as Detective James Martinez, has a small role as Officer Colovito, one of the police officers who begs off going into the towers; Donna Murphy plays the volatile Judy Jonas, one of the first women to be notified that her husband is alive; and Patti D’Arbanville is Donna’s concerned neighbor. Stephen Dorff (as Scott Strauss) and Frank Whaley (Chuck Sereika) successfully convey the anguish and concern the rescuers had for their fallen comrades.

Rather than focusing the film on terrorism, Stone tells an uplifting story of heroism, respecting the memory of those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. The coda, voiced by Cage puts the film’s intent into perspective: “Nine-eleven showed us what human beings are capable of. They’re evil, yeah, sure, but it also brought out the goodness we forget could exist, like people taking care of each other for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. It’s important for us to talk about that good, to remember, because I saw a lot of it that day.”

Extras

The “World Trade Center” has a second DVD with hours of extras that leave no stone unturned. Topics include “The Making of the World Trade Center,” “Common Sacrifice,” “Building Ground Zero,” visual and special effects, “Oliver Stone’s New York” and an excerpt from the David Lean Lecture Series of a Q & A session with Stone. “Common Sacrifice” is an extensive documentary about John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno’s experiences in “the hole” and how their lives have changed since then. Jimeno is animated, outgoing, still awed that he somehow survived; McLouglin remains reticent during his interview, pausing to regain his composure when he speaks about his family and the loss of his men. Donna McLoughlin, Allison Jimeno, Mcloughlin’s brother, Pat, and Jimeno’s sister Karen Chaffee talk frankly about how they came to grips with the probability that their loved ones weren’t coming home. “The Making Of” gets inside the creative mind of Oliver Stone, who stresses his desire to film an authentic account of McLoughlin and Jimeno’s ordeal. Nicholas Cage, much more interesting here than in the film, discusses the role that darkness played in the filming, as well as his concern that his performance wouldn’t live up to McLoughin’s expectations. Michael Pena admits he was reluctant to take the role of Jimeno because of the sensitivity of the subject, while Maggie Gyllenhaal relates that she purposely tried not to imitate Allison Jimeno after meeting her (which may account for her overstated performance). “The Making of” also offers commentary from both families, as well as interviews with Jason Thomas, Scott Strauss, Brad Dorff, and members of the film crew, including Producer Moritz Borman and Costume Designer Michael Dennison (but there’s no appearance by the mysterious Karns, who re-enlisted in the Marines and served two tours in Iraq). Director of Photography Seamus McGarvey and composer Craig Armstrong sport thick brogues, but are given subtitles, a good idea given that they have a lot to say and are very informative. Armstrong’s remarks about the music as an emotional barometer for the film are particularly enlightening.

The extras go a long way in explaining that perhaps for the first time in his storied career, Oliver Stone had no motive or agenda in mind when making the film. He simply wanted to tell a story of two men’s triumph through adversity, and he tells it well

Posted December 20, 2006 Permalink