Oliver Stone Rewrites 9/11

By Anthony Kaufman, AlterNet. Posted August 9, 2006.

"Don't think; keep moving."

Spoken by Port Authority police Sergeant John McLoughlin (Nicholas Cage) as the World Trade Center buckles above him, these words ring truer than most in Paramount Pictures' new film "World Trade Center," directed by Oliver Stone.

Not only does this line of dialogue aptly describe the movie -- which opens today -- but it also illustrates a worldview embraced by the film. No wonder Paramount launched a massive marketing campaign that targets two specific groups often light on thought and heavy on action: teenage boys and the Christian Right.

A celebration of authority, God, and president Bush, "World Trade Center" doesn't feel like an Oliver Stone movie. If conservatives were worried that Stone, the director of anti-establishment touchstones "Platoon," "Born on the Fourth of July," and "JFK," would turn this 9/11 movie into a platform for personal politics, he has proved them resoundingly wrong. Instead, Stone delivers the Bush base a jingoistic, All-American all-you-can-eat buffet on a silver platter.

"World Trade Center" opens with the soon-to-be heroes of a Port Authority police precinct heading into work from points across New Jersey and New York. It's an ethnic cross-section of New Yorkers, including sergeant McLoughlin (Cage), Will Jimeno (Michael Pena), Antonio Rodriguez (Armendo Riesco) and Dominick Pezzulo (Jay Hernandez).

But when Jimeno starts mouthing the words to Brooks and Dunn's country and western song "Only in America" -- heard on the radio, and, of course, the soundtrack -- the film betrays its true setting. This isn't New York (come on, how many Latino cops sing along with lily-white patriotic ballads?). This is an imaginary Big Apple -- complete with happy-go-lucky black transsexual prostitutes and amiable hippie homeless guys -- made for those who've never visited the city and want to claim it as their own 9/11 memory.

The film predictably sets up the characters alongside the first rumblings of the catastrophe and the confusion on the ground: Were there two planes, or just one? A small aircraft, or a larger jet? Possibly to avoid depicting the impact for the umpteenth time, Stone never shows the planes hitting the towers; we only see a brief glimpse of a jet's shadow crossing a building. (This image also includes a billboard from Paramount's 2001 Ben Stiller comedy "Zoolander." Is this historical accuracy or product placement?)

No matter. When McLoughlin and his team eventually enter the World Trade Center concourse as the buildings collapse, the film takes its most harrowing turn. Fade to black: Buried beneath mounds of gnarled metal, concrete slabs, and twisted pipes, the Port Authority officers are either trapped, dead, or dying. These horrible moments are also the film's most effective and visceral; the men endure excruciating pain; the surroundings are oppressive, claustrophobic and thrilling. But just in case the audience gets too uncomfortable, Stone cuts away to their wholesome American families waiting tearfully for word of their husbands, fathers and sons. As grieving wives and mothers, actors Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal do an admirable job of suffering in slow motion. Some in the audience will have trouble fighting back the soapy movie-of-the-week tears.

Anthony Kaufman has written about films and the film industry for the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and Utne Magazine.