Cast: Khalid Abdalla, Lewis Alsamari, Omar Berdouni, Jamie Harding, Christian Clemenson, Trish Gates, Polly Adams, Cheyenne Jackson, Gary Commock, J.J. Johnson, Nancy McDoniel, David Alan Basche, David Rasche, Kate Jennings Grant, (as themselves) Ben Sliney, Rich Sullivan, Tony Smith, James Fox, Shawna Fox.

It’s played straight, without sentimentality or emotional manipulation and with deep respect for those who died on United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, and it’s a devastating film. From the beginning where we watch four young terrorists praying and preparing in their hotel room, to the discovery by air traffic controllers of the first of four hijacked planes, to the final cataclysmic moments in the cockpit of the diving plane, tension builds and is unrelenting.

Some roles in Air traffic Control or the military are played by those who played them in real life on the day. Others, on the plane where none survived, are played by experienced airline crew and ordinary people, in a cross section representing the 40 passengers on board that day. Extensive information was provided by bereaved families about what kind of people their loved ones were, how they might behave in the situation, what they said on those last phone calls, even what they might have been wearing. The result is a harrowing drama with no character arcs: just a then-inconceivable, close-ended situation with which the passengers must come to terms in a very short time period.

The mix of professional crew members and non-actors makes for a low-key, naturalistic plane boarding, with its snippets of ordinary conversation, professional smiles and friendly, routine interactions. Only the terrorists seem less relaxed than anyone else and the ease with which they are able to get through airport security with concealed weapons and the makings of a bomb seems extraordinary to us now. The fact that English actor Lewis Alsamari, who plays one of the terrorists, was refused entry into the US to attend the premiere of the film, which was shot at Pinewood Studios, England, is testament to a world that, since 9/11, treats security with the utmost seriousness.

The horrors of that day are seen through the eyes of air traffic controllers, either on screens where planes are tracked, then disappear, or through the viewing window of Newark Airport with the World Trade Centre Towers in clear sight, or more directly, on the plane. The film cuts from the dry-mouthed tension and acid frustration of officials and military whose intel is not always accurate to the unsuspecting passengers being served a hot breakfast aboard UAL 93. Once it’s realised the disappearance from the radar of hijacked American 11, and the gaping hole in the North Tower of the WTC are linked, heartbreaking time is lost in North Eastern Air Defence HQ trying to get Rules of Engagement, to get clearance to scramble fighter jets, and then to engage. The President and the Vice President, who are unable to be reached immediately, are the only ones who can give clearance.

Filmed on hand held cameras, the passengers’ panic, horror and grief followed by resolution and action is grainily real. Director Paul Greengrass, whose award winning Bloody Sunday and Omagh dealt with the effect on ordinary people of the violence in Northern Ireland, has created an experience of terror that is the most real of any historical recreation I have ever had. The respect, admiration and compassion for those who died and those who survived that day is profound. The most extraordinary moments are near the end when it is apparent that everyone on the plane, terrorists and passengers alike, are all, in their own languages, praying.

© Avril Carruthers    26^th July 2006