Short Review: This is the first Oliver Stone film where I didn’t walk away shaking my head, asking everyone else, “Its not just me, that guy is nuts right?”


It is striking that proven conspiracy nut Oliver Stone’s film about 9/11 goes out of its way to avoid the actual conspiracy at the heart of that murderous day. Besides some distant remarks on televisions and curses thrown by a hefty skulled man from Wisconsin, the events of 9/11 seem like a natural occurrence rather than the results of a terrorist plot. I’m not saying Stone should have had a gaggle of undulating, burka-laden women shuffling through the wreckage or wild-eyed Islamofacists mincing about with suicide belts. What I was looking for was any clear statement that the two planes steered into the World Trade Center buildings, along with the ones flown into The Pentagon and another into the ground were piloted by Islamic terrorists. Acknowledging this conspiracy would have made some difference. As it stands, this is like watching a better version of The Towering Inferno. The buildings may as well have been knocked down by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

This huge issue aside, the film itself serves its purpose. It is there to be the more comfortable 9/11 film. Following the French documentary 9/11 which showed the actual events as they happened, and Paul Greengrass’ stark and realistic United 93, Stone brought Hollywood dramatics to the subject. We have the big star (Nicholas Cage) supported by melodramatic music and good lighting going through the day. The narrative of three trapped port authority cops is rolled out in a systematic, almost mechanical fashion. The end of the film provides an effective emotional reunion between the men and their wives.

This isn’t a bad movie, I’d actually recommend it for the most part. Again, it serves its commercial purpose and provides an emotional arc. The problem is not that this is a bad movie, it is that it isn’t an important one. Film is one of the great forms of communication. It has deep impact on our lives because one of its many purposes we use it for is to memorialize people and events. Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan and Roots are just three examples. One of the great honors in our civilization is to have a movie made about your life. Given this, the first big Hollywood movie about 9/11 should have provided more. There is a lack of depth to this piece that serves to pull the historical importance from the day. I understand Stone was attempting to show the real life, the individual impact of the terror attacks. The problem with this is that this was an act of war and the World Trade Center buildings didn’t just happen to a group of people, they happened to the free world. The structure of this film should have followed the framework of most war films. Tell the story of individual sacrifice and pain in the midst of an ensemble presence. You get your individual impact while expressing the wider results. This story of these survivors of 9/11 provides many moments of interest, but without the overall picture being shown, they don’t have any lasting impression.

Given that the audience brings in their own memories and impressions on 9/11, this film does give enough to make it worth seeing at least once. The final verdict has to be that many will probably not have any reason to see it a second time.


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Labels: film, Maria Bello, movie review, Nicholas Cage, Oliver Stone, terrorism

Important when it was released, it was considered to be the first "serious" market friendly film made about the Vietnam War (The Deer Hunter was a bit too serious for most audiences). This led a renaissance of war films in the late 1980's. With Vietnam being turned into some sick cartoon by Missing in Action and Rambo: First Blood Part II, this movie corrected the record to a certain degree by taking the experience with some gravity. Ironically, writer/director Oliver Stonehad written the original screenplay, following his own tour in the war, to counter the light treatment he saw the film get in John Wayne's The Green Berets. Stone still shoehorns every possible experience, stereotype and myth into his masterwork and is manipulative in his own way. Stone's overreaching style is evidenced here but unlike his later films JFK, Nixon, Natural Born Killers and The Doors, his personal stamp doesn't get in the way of narrative.

Stone knows how to handle drama. The war is seen through the eyes of young Private Taylor (Charlie Sheen), who volunteered for service. Taylor finds himself having to choose sides in a platoon splintered in two. One half follows the cruel but effective Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger), the other half follows the more laid back, but just as effective Sergeant Gordin (Willem Dafoe). The performances of Berenger and Dafoe are worth the price of admission alone. Stone carefully crafts the conflict between the two halves of the platoon to show the two aspects of the war from his perspective and stands a brilliant piece of screenwriting.

One of the best war films ever released, this is one of the films everyone should see at least once.

Obviously, this being a war film, violence, rape and cursing abound. If you're a sensitive audience member, you probably want to shy away.


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Labels: Charlie Sheen, film, Forest Whitaker, movie review, Oliver Stone, Tom Berenger, Vietnam, war, Willem Dafoe