Long before Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday, Omagh, The Bourne Supremacy) recreates the final horribly gripping moments aboard Flight 93, the plane doomed to crash-land in Pennsylvania on September 11th, 2001, small portentous moments already seem barbed – an old lady sits with now verboten knitting needles while the lax security on the flight gate seems to belong to a greatly distant past.
Featuring relatively unknown actors cast for resemblance to each of the individual passengers that day and utilizing recollections from family members, the director paints in humanist strokes. The former athletes onboard – Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett – are inevitably depicted leading the final charge on the cockpit, but all are given a fitting memorial. Some attempt to treat the wounded. Stewardesses hand out knives and boiling water as weapons. All are listed during the final credits.
Having already adapted his frenzied docu-dramatic style for a boy’s own genre, we should not be to surprised that Greengrass renders these events in a perversely thrilling manner. Still, there’s a fright to be had when his unnerving grasp of film grammar leaves you rooting for the passengers against all hope.
Conspiracy nuts may not be pleased to find no mention of white jets or meticulous fidelity to the 9/11 commission report. Some might reasonably be discomfited by the entirely speculative nature of the parts of the screenplay. Few, however, will deny that Greengrass has achieved the near impossible in adding a fresh sense of horror to Flight 93’s awful fate.