United 93

Paul Greengrass' United 93 (2006) is problematic for many reasons. However, there is one point of interest that decides whether the viewer can enjoy the film or not. It is so heavily rooted in the audience's experience of the 911 terrorist attack that it most likely seems alien to those who did not witness the incident. The film is only relevant for a short period of time - after that most of its power will utterly be lost. That's my biggest gripe with the film.

No, I did not come up with this notion before I watched the film. It was the result of witnessing redundant and bloated melodrama that turned me off. At first the film seemed promising: it grabbed my attention, but eventually I lost interest because it is so monotonous and heavy-handed throughout its running time. Greengrass attempts to make the audience identify with the passenger and flight crew by giving us snippets of intimate dialogue and what not, but that is lost soon because none of the characters are established - which in turn leads the film to rely on the viewer's own memories. I do have to admit that the initial slow exposition of the day is rather well done, though. Storytelling works well for a while.

Greengrass employs his usual cinematography that relies on the shakiness of the camera. I'm not against the concept of it, but I can't recall it being implemented sufficiently often (Battlestar Galactica might be the only case). United 93 doesn't change my mind about the approach's weakness. When you have a film that is shaky in almost every shot, the effect is drastically diminished. Combine this with haphazard editing that doesn't even attempt to give the viewer a clue of the current location - even though there are so many different milieus that we are supposed to recognise from each other.

United 93's success is destroyed by its blatantly overdramatic approach which even manages to hide the few gems of the film (such as the absolutely fantastic no-name cast).

Score: 4 out of 10