WTC: Wasn't That Contemptible
We'll just come right out and say it: World Trade Center is not as bad as we expected. But then again, we thought it'd be baaaaad. Oliver Stone + Nicolas Cage + a weighty topic = a recipe for disaster. Seattlest went to a screening primarily to see just how bad it could be, but unexpectedly, we smirked a lot less in this film than in United 93. And that's even taking into account WTC's terrible youth-skewed marketing (the Coldplay-soundtracked TV ads and the movie's cringetastic profile on MySpace), as well as the conservative-baiting advertising care of the same PR group that swift-boated Kerry.
Nicolas Cage plays John McLoughlin, a Port Authority sergeant who gets trapped in the rubble after Tower 2 collapses. He has both a mustache and a terrible New Yawk accent (as in, he's got "fo-uh" kids). His babymama, the always fierce Maria Bello, is a New Jersey wife waiting to hear any word on John's fate. Too bad for her, she's not going to get to enjoy her husband's death. Neither will Maggie Gyllenhaal, big, pregnant, and still rather slouchy, as the wife of Will Jimeno, the port authority rookie trapped with McLoughlin. Personally, if we were in a life-or-death situation with Nicolas Cage, we'd be praying for the merciful escape of death, but then again we don't have a wife and kids. Instead, the two cops have to stay awake and alive by fighting the pain of internal bleeding while opening up to each other emotionally. In the better role of the two, Jimeno is played by Michael Pena, who makes a star turn here after his part in Crash as "The Hispanic Guy."
Unfortunately, there's some sloppy directing on Stone's part. The film suffers from fuzzy flashbacks in soft focus and, more egregriously, the overuse of slow-motion shots. Slow-mo does not equal increased signifance, especially when it's slow-mo of Nicolas Cage yelling "Ruuuuuuuuuuun!" On other aspects, Stone gets it right. He uses archival footage well, and shows restraint in what is and is not reenacted (e.g., you don't see the planes hit the towers). Certain details of that day he captures perfectly: all the stray papers fluttering around Manhattan; a neighborhood at night, every house lit by a flickering television tuned to the news. The collapse of the towers is sufficiently intense, and the scale model of Ground Zero looks amazing, if it's at all proper to praise the appearance of a graveyard.
There's been a lot of talk amongst critics about how the film is surprisingly, thankfully apolitical. This is for the most part true. However, one character brings politics to the fore, a hyper-religious Marine who says things like "we're at war, we just don't know it yet" and that the events of the day "must be avenged." And we all know how well that turned out. Shudder.
Like United 93, WTC is not a terrible movie, but it's still not a film we would ever tell someone to go see. Perhaps someday, decades from now, we'll have a film that accurately portrays the events of 9/11, both the day of and the years of aftermath. But it's far too soon for that. There's just no way to capture a major cultural/political shift when you're still in the thick of it.
