United 93

Movie review from The Movie Snob

United 93 (A). This one almost got away from me. I really wanted to see it on the big screen, but I kept putting it off because I was never in the right frame of mind to see such a serious movie about such a grim subject. In case you have been living in a monastery for the last six months, this is a movie about 9/11, with its focus on the only hijacked plane that did not successfully reach its target. The film is extremely well done. It is split between the events on United Flight 93 on one hand and various air-traffic and military control centers on the other. The people on Flight 93 are oblivious to the events in New York and Washington, while the air-traffic folks are increasingly frantic to figure out what is happening and which airplanes in the air have been hijacked. Then the four terrorists on Flight 93 make their move, and we watch as the passengers gradually figure out what is happening (thanks to cellphone technology), find a pilot among their number, and decide to try to save themselves. This movie grabs you by the throat and never lets go.