Oliver Stone’s career has been jollied along by lateral thinking. Over two decades, he has revitalised mainstream cinema with conspiracy theories and MTV pyrotechnics and political consciousness. The bluster of Natural Born Killers may have brought us uncomfortably close to watching our dads at a rave, but even when his appetite for innovation comes undone, our culture would be poorer without him.
Watching World Trade Centre, you suspect that the director has decided to tone things down after the great Alexander debacle. There are few trademark flourishes or adornments. And if you’ve come to find out what Oliver Stone thinks about 9/11, then boy, have you come to the wrong place. Instead, Hollywood’s second attempt to grapple with the events of that day is a straight up, solidly researched heroic drama.
As such, it’s rather successful. The disaster of the collapse is spectacularly handled. The hours spent by Sergeant John McLoughlin (Cage) and Officer Will Jimeno (Pena) – two of the last survivors found in the rubble – are painstakingly recreated.
Sadly, the attention to historical detail becomes a problem. Though Stone’s always great with frontline action, you can’t help but feel that sensitivity for those involved has hindered the film’s dramatic prospects. Did we really need to see the hallucinated Jesus holding aloft a bottle of mineral water? Did we really need to know what the wives (Bello and Gyllenhaal) were going through?
Still, if World Trade Centre can’t match United 93 for impact, it’s a worthy vessel capable of rekindling one’s sense of horror.
Can’t wait for the invisible plane version.