"World Trade Center"

Directed by: Oliver Stone
Starring: Nicholas Cage,
Michael Pea, Maria Bello,
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jay Her-
nandez
Rating: PG-13 (for adult lan-
guage, themes of violence)
Rnning time: 125 minutes
Best sited for: those ready

Acorn's Rating Guide:

Least sited for: those who
aren't

I remember watching the Twin Towers burn on Sept. 11 and thinking how much it seemed like a disaster movie. The surreal horror of those few hours remained oddly removed by that notion. Until the emotional Novocaine of doubt began to wane, it struck me as some sort of Hollywood trickery. In many ways Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" seems more realistic to me than the actual event.

Thankfully, the film is less a disaster movie than a paean to working-class bravery, a tribute to New York's day of terror and courage. Coming only months after director Paul Greengrass' emotionally wrenching "United 93," Stone has distanced himself from the enemy, choosing instead to focus on the survivors-their stories of heroism and hope. If "United 93" was this nation's filmatic Pearl Harbor, then "WTC" is our Midway.

But Stone is careful not to malign a people or a cause. There is little room for politics, little need for finger pointing or rabble rousing. The enemy is the millions of tons of concrete and steel that crash down upon a squad of Port Authority police officers who've anxiously entered the building in an attempt to save lives.

Nicholas Cage plays real-life transit cop John McLoughlin and Michael Pea is Will Jimeno, a member of his squad-the two incredibly managing to survive the collapse of the 1,360 foot towers. For much of the film they lie trapped under the rubble, unaware of the magnitude of the events unfolding around them. The film sees that day from their points of view: We do not see the planes that strike the Twin Towers, nor do we witness their collapse. The ground trembles and groans; we see, hear and feel the tower's implosion the way McLoughlin and Pea experience it-an instant of horrific, claustrophobic bewilderment before darkness engulfs them.

Yet if there's a flaw to "WTC," it's one born of actual events. Both men are gravely injured and barely able to move. They can do little more than call back and forth to each other-the film cuts now and then to rescue workers and jumps as often to their wives and families-but it is primarily the cops' story, trapped underground.

The otherwise excellent "The Pianist" fell victim to this same necessary vrit—while the horrors of Nazi occupation raged around Polish Jew Wladyslaw Szpilman, he hid in small, windowless rooms-and so do we, the audience. You can strip away a film's visual emotion for only so long before we begin to fidget, asking: What's happening out there? More than once during "WTC," I couldn't help but wonder.

One ambiguous curiosity is the sparsity of personal tragedy. We witness one man die and realize that several others we've met are most likely dead. We watch a man tumble from an upper floor and glimpse streams of walking wounded as McLoughlin and his squad arrive at the scene. I'm not a proponent of gratuitous violence but the visual absence of death seems almost negligent here. I suspect this omission to be a conscious decision, in deference to those who lost their lives, although I do believe the film suffers in terms of emotional impact.

Another curiosity is director Stone's decision to film "WTC" as a straightforward docudrama, devoid of any sly wink or suggestive mantra of nothing is what it seems. For a man notorious for theoretical postulations, there simply is no room here for such diversion. Stylistically speaking, "WTC" is Stone's most simplistic film. It rumbles and terrifies, awes and heart-wrenches-but the story itself is strictly CNN.

The cameras eventually cut away to tearful wives and overwrought families, and occasionally the emotional manipulation can begin to seep around the edges. These images aren't necessary to convey the horror of what happened that day and, by distancing us from Ground Zero, the film also distances us from its reality. The ploy grants an emotional breather for some- but speaking strictly in terms of cinematic brevity, those moments of relative tranquility also distract us from the terror of be- ing there. I suspect that many of us who choose to view "WTC"

still somehow need that catharsis of terror or anger to salve our own souls.

In a nutshell: Oliver Stone's brutal, somber, heartfelt film translates the horror of 9/11 into the personal hell of two New York City cops trapped in the rubble of the fallen buildings. It's a story of courage and survival-and also a reminder that we dwell in a burgeoning era of warfare without battlefields, without rules. And while perhaps less intimate than "United 93," "World Trade Center" is nevertheless a worthy vehicle for those who are compelled to relive that day.