World Trade Center

Oliver Stone – 2006 – USA

Some people call Oliver Stone obvious and heavy-handed, and I’m one of them.  I’ve slowly warmed up to him over the years, mostly because he does have an undeniably powerful style that demands respect, but at his worst, his shameless posturing, preaching and self-aggrandizement are pretty hard to take.  Given its momentous subject, World Trade Center is surprisingly one of Stone’s more understated films, focusing on a pair of cops trapped in the rubble of the collapsed buildings.  It’s no less obvious a strategy for Stone but I suppose it is somewhat admirable compared to the handful of flimsy TV movies about 9/11 that deal with the activities of Washington decision-makers that day.  The senior of the two men is Nicolas Cage, who is quite distracting since it’s never possible to forget that he is Nicolas Cage, a character we may remember from virtually all of his other movies.  Michael Peña is so much more convincing as a regular guy in an extraordinary situation.  It’s not a bad film at all, but it didn’t do much for me.  I was more interested in Michael Shannon’s supporting character – (a quirky soldier eager to take on the perpetrators of the terror attacks) – than I was in the main story.  I was never fully convinced that Stone had any special feeling for this story beyond just wanting to do something about 9/11.  He relates more to power players than victims, which is why films like Nixon (1995) and W. (2008) are so enjoyable.