United 93: A Fateful Chronicle

For about ninety minutes, viewers re-live bits and pieces of September 11th, 2001. Creative non-fiction demonstrates how regular people, in their regular lives, find themselves thrown together inside one ill-fatedflight to San Francisco. The events are five year old history. "United 93" jolts memories barely faded. I don't believe this movie surfaced too soon, as some theorize. I view the movie as a personal challenge for the viewer to witness what one one would ever have wanted to experience: people banding together for the common good.

Eleven of the cast play themselves. Regular looking people, who come in all shapes and sizes, and nationalities, portray the events that unfolded before the plane crashed into a Pennsylvania pasture, leaving no survivors. The entire movie has a "fly on the wall" attitude to it. As passengers begin to make their final phone calls, we too are emotionally wrought. One woman leaves word where her will is. . . and shares words of goodbye. Many others tell their loved ones adieu. The portrayal of love shows the best of being human, and is porously emotional. To that point, events had been like a quick paced slide show--this movie has many fast cuts, and the suspense builds from the first scene. "United 93" will grab your patriotic soul and heart.

Think of this movie as a personal challenge for every American to re-live one fateful day of history. We often pass on unsettling entertainment encounters, in preference of lighter viewing. This movie will make you feel, and think. I left the movie theater wondering how I would have reacted, had I been a passenger on "United 93". "The Dallas News" rates this an "A" feature, and I agree that those who want to see it, should see it in the big screen, with big sounds, because they will leave the theater feeling they have partaken in an historic experience.