World Trade Center

World Trade Center (2006)2hr 5min - Rated PG-13 - Drama
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Maria Bello, Stephen Dorff Directed by: Oliver Stone
This is not the usual sort of hollywood movie. In a good way though. The characters were more realistic, and the way the story unfolded was believable. To start with, we all remember that day. The confusion, the stories that were flying around about what happened. It's all there, this movie nails that feeling on the head. It really amazed me how accurate they got that.
Now, in a normal movie it would have went like this, hour of setup, geting the characters established, yada yada, etc etc. Then the tower would come into play at the halway point. the rest of the movie would be some sort of heroic struggle (superman heroic, not quit desperation heroic) then we would have the rescue and a tearful hugging of the wife.
That is not how World Trade Center worked. The setup is brief, and we get a taste of how the characters lives work. Then before we have time to get into our popcorn all hell breaks loose. The characters are bussed to the disaster site, and they know nothing. My friend kept saying for them not to do stuff, but all I kept saying was, "they don't know"
They aren't in the tower that long to get their bearings and things go from disasterous to insane. The towers collapse... well one of them. Of course the characters don't know this. Through the whole movie you do understand how little they know about what is going on. Usthe viewers at the other end of five years later can rhyme off they events as they go by, but the characters are in the dark...
the rest of the movie alternates between the families going nuts over what is happening, and the main characters trapped under the rubble. The movie went by very very quickly. I.. well enjoyed wouldn't be the right mood would it? It was a good movie, and I would watch it again. The acting was good, even Cage who has a tendancy to sort of wander sometimes. I particularly enjoyed Michael Pena's and Maggie Gyllenhaal's performance.