Edinburgh Arts

With a film of this kind, it would be churlish to nitpick, the plot (if it can be called that) coming a distinct second to the reality of flight 93's fate. My one query would regard why the various authorities on the ground got to hear of the World Trade Center attacks through the media rather than other authorities, but I shall leave that for the conspiracy theorists. The assumption of the plane's target, despite its plausibility, is also presumably a matter of conjecture.

The raw nature of the footage gives United 93 all the more immediacy, adding considerably to the horror of the hijack sequence. The authorities' helplessness in the face of increasing odds - with so many flights in the air, how to tell how many may have been hijacked? never mind the practicality of grounding them all immediately - is in stark contrast to the passengers on the plane who feel a moral obligation to fight back, even at the loss of their own lives. Most impressively, the terrorists themselves are far from one-dimensional villains: one is seen to telephone a loved one before boarding the plane and all four show signs of nerves in the lead-up to the hijacking.

Just as one cannot readily criticise the plot, so the acting is difficult to put under scrutiny. The lack of any established film actors in the cast is one of the film's great strengths, allowing the viewer to concentrate on the drama. Praise should also be heaped on the air traffic controllers and other on the ground who play themselves, a gesture one hopes will have helped them come to terms with their experience of 11th September 2001.

Only the score is sometimes obstrusive, needlessly amplifying the viewer's sense of foreboding. Thankfully this happens infrequently, but still enough to make one resent such unnecessary spoon-feeding. That said, United 93 is empathetically not a Hollywood movie. Its lack of sensationalism alone makes this a film to be seen and valued.

(12th June 2006)