Film: Murder, Up Close

UNITED 93, Paul Greengrass’s audacious recreation of what may be the worst ninety-odd minutes in American history, is the most unbearable film I’ve ever watched. It’s not a sad story, or a moving one-it didn’t raise a faintly pleasant lump in my throat, like Old Yeller or Titanic. Instead, it pinned me to my seat; it made me sob and cringe, grind my teeth and look away. It felt less like a movie than an assault.

Is this an endorsement, or a criticism? Days after seeing the movie, I’m still not sure, even though it’s hard to imagine how the story of Flight 93 could have been better told. Greengrass’s earlier films include a gritty docudrama (Bloody Sunday, about the infamous 1970s massacre in Northern Ireland) and a hyperkinetic action vehicle (The Bourne Supremacy), and he puts both skills to good use here. United 93 is a restrained film, despite its grueling subject matter, made without any stars-no Tom Cruise as Todd Beamer, thank God-and with every potential ounce of fat mercilessly stripped away. The screenplay is defiantly quotidian, mostly casual chatter about business trips and children waiting at home; there is no embellishment, nothing maudlin or melodramatic, and without any star-crossed-lover subplots to distract us, the film’s realism is that much harder to endure. And by emphasizing the ordinariness of the people traveling on Flight 93-refusing to provide back-stories, or even names, to the people we’re about to watch die—Greengrass closes the distance that would otherwise open between the plane’s passengers and the audience. What happens on the flight isn’t so much watched as experienced: The passengers are empty vessels, ordinary victims into which the audience’s own identities are poured. They go down to death, and we go down with them.

About the Author

Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat is a former National Review contributing editor.

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UNITED 93, Paul Greengrass’s audacious recreation of what may be the worst ninety-odd minutes in American history, is the most unbearable film I’ve ever watched. It’s not a sad story, or a moving one-it didn’t raise a faintly pleasant lump in my throat, like Old Yeller or Titanic. Instead, it pinned me to my seat; it made me sob and cringe, grind my teeth and look away. It felt less like a movie than an assault.

Is this an endorsement, or a criticism? Days after seeing the movie, I’m still not sure, even though it’s hard to imagine how the story of Flight 93 could have been better told. Greengrass’s earlier films include a gritty docudrama (Bloody Sunday, about the infamous 1970s massacre in Northern Ireland) and a hyperkinetic action vehicle (The Bourne Supremacy), and he puts both skills to good use here. United 93 is a restrained film, despite its grueling subject matter, made without any stars-no Tom Cruise as Todd Beamer, thank God-and with every potential ounce of fat mercilessly stripped away. The screenplay is defiantly quotidian, mostly casual chatter about business trips and children waiting at home; there is no embellishment, nothing maudlin or melodramatic, and without any star-crossed-lover subplots to distract us, the film’s realism is that much harder to endure. And by emphasizing the ordinariness of the people traveling on Flight 93-refusing to provide back-stories, or even names, to the people we’re about to watch die—Greengrass closes the distance that would otherwise open between the plane’s passengers and the audience. What happens on the flight isn’t so much watched as experienced: The passengers are empty vessels, ordinary victims into which the audience’s own identities are poured. They go down to death, and we go down with them.