World Trade Center

With all traces of any element that might incite controversy absent in Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center, what we are left with is a well-crafted recap of the events surrounding the day, portrayed from the perspective of Port Authority patrol Sgt. John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage), who, after the collision of the first plane, rushes with his colleagues into Tower One and is trapped in the ensuing collapse with fellow officer Will Jimeno (Michael Peña). The first act is exceptional, a near-verité approach that really seems to convey the palpable horror and terror of the events. But once the building collapses around Cage and Peña, the film slowly becomes yet another exercise in household melodrama as the wives wait for word of the husbands’ fate and inevitable rescue. It is an exercise completely lacking in suspense, in that it has been well-promoted that this “inspiring true-life story” has McLoughlin and Jimeno among the last men rescued from the rubble. Stone really does seem to be playing it safe, with the closest he gets to seeming to have a point other than the heroism of the date is the worldwide unification that came about during the aftermath. Whatever baggage you bring into the theater is the baggage you leave with.