World Trade Center: The movie
As much as we appreciated United 93, we could also relate to the criticism of one man, who said he was left just feeling empty. Pretty hard to avoid, when the finale is a plane crash. Period.
You don’t have that excuse with World Trade Center, which begins with a plane crash and climaxes in a triumph of the human spirit. May I extend the metaphor? Since there’s no way to spoil the story by giving away the plot, we’d like to suggest that Will and John’s fight to maintain consciousness despite their injuries while trapped in the rubble is symbolic of a challenge all Americans face: Maintaining the vigilance and determination to defeat our enemy.
I understand the disconnect. When 9/11 occurred, I was a struggling freelance writer scratching for work. Somehow the TV news photos of the planes and the twin towers just wouldn’t become real for me. I knew intellectually they were real, but a part of me felt as if I were watching some Hollywood special effects.
So, I invested in a good camera, drove to New York City and visited Ground Zero. I interviewed numbers of relief workers and Christian ministry workers and did days and days of photojournalism. Neither the pictures nor the interviews, to this day, have been published. But at least I’d connected the dots for myself.
Unfortunately, there are too many others who don’t want those dots connected. For if they were, it would be harder for them to retreat to slogans (“Bush lied, people died”) and outright denial (“9/11 was a CIA hoax to start a war”). They’d have to deal with the reality that radical Islam declared war on us a long time ago, whether we like it or not. And either we take the fight to them in a decisive way, or we wait for them to come get us while we cover our ears and sing, “La-la-la-la. I can’t hear you!”
World Trade Center is a great antidote to that creeping unreality in our culture, which has all but forgotten we’re a nation at war. It will help connect the dots for anyone who didn’t have the opportunity to witness Ground Zero for themselves.
It won’t leave you empty. It’s an uplifting story about the triumph of the human spirit. And the need for vigilance and determination.
See it.
You don’t have that excuse with World Trade Center, which begins with a plane crash and climaxes in a triumph of the human spirit. May I extend the metaphor? Since there’s no way to spoil the story by giving away the plot, we’d like to suggest that Will and John’s fight to maintain consciousness despite their injuries while trapped in the rubble is symbolic of a challenge all Americans face: Maintaining the vigilance and determination to defeat our enemy.
I understand the disconnect. When 9/11 occurred, I was a struggling freelance writer scratching for work. Somehow the TV news photos of the planes and the twin towers just wouldn’t become real for me. I knew intellectually they were real, but a part of me felt as if I were watching some Hollywood special effects.
So, I invested in a good camera, drove to New York City and visited Ground Zero. I interviewed numbers of relief workers and Christian ministry workers and did days and days of photojournalism. Neither the pictures nor the interviews, to this day, have been published. But at least I’d connected the dots for myself.
Unfortunately, there are too many others who don’t want those dots connected. For if they were, it would be harder for them to retreat to slogans (“Bush lied, people died”) and outright denial (“9/11 was a CIA hoax to start a war”). They’d have to deal with the reality that radical Islam declared war on us a long time ago, whether we like it or not. And either we take the fight to them in a decisive way, or we wait for them to come get us while we cover our ears and sing, “La-la-la-la. I can’t hear you!”
World Trade Center is a great antidote to that creeping unreality in our culture, which has all but forgotten we’re a nation at war. It will help connect the dots for anyone who didn’t have the opportunity to witness Ground Zero for themselves.
It won’t leave you empty. It’s an uplifting story about the triumph of the human spirit. And the need for vigilance and determination.
See it.
posted by Roscoe Daley at 9:09 PM
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