UNITED 93

UNITED 93 is a tense, emotionally powerful docudrama about the Islamic terrorist attacks on 9/11. It focuses on the American passengers of Flight 93. The plane eventually crashed in a Pennsylvania field when the passengers tried to re-take the controls of the plane.

The movie opens with the four Islamic terrorists assigned to Flight 93 preparing for jihad in their hotel rooms. They pray to their false god and shave. As flight controllers in the national FAA headquarters in Virginia and controllers in New York and Boston seem helpless in the wake of two planes crashing into the World Trade Center, everything seems calm on Flight 93. The lead terrorist there appears hesitant in ordering the attack, but he is forced into action when another terrorist puts the plan into motion.

Panic ensues among the passengers, but when they hear about the planes crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, they realize this is no ordinary hijacking. Several men on the plane gather in the back of the plane to re-take the pilot’s cabin. This makes the terrorists increasingly nervous. As the Americans gather their courage, their fellow passengers begin praying to their God and making last-minute phone calls to loved ones and friends.

Although nearly five years have passed, many Americans probably are still not ready to relive the terrible events of that day. UNITED 93, however, is a brilliant realistic portrayal of what happened on Flight 93 and in the flight controller rooms and military headquarters in Virginia, New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. It is a realistic portrayal, however, so if you’re not fervently opposed to Islamofascist terrorism, you may not get the point, especially if you live overseas (only God knows what Islamofascists in Iran, Afghanistan and around the world may think about the movie, the Islamic worldview is so warped).

There are a few other media-wise warnings to give about the movie.

The biggest problem is that both the terrorists near the beginning and the passengers near the end pray to God or gods. Thus, the movie sets up a kind of moral and spiritual equivalence between the terrorists and their victims that may be hard for even intelligent, educated and well-trained people to unravel. Still, the movie contains a strong, mostly positive portrayal of Americans in crisis.

Secondly, although a couple passengers pray the Lord’s Prayer toward the end of the movie, the only time that the name Jesus is used in the movie is as a profanity. It has been reported that one of the men who led the attack on the Flight 93 terrorists at one point said, “Help me, Jesus.” It is disappointing, therefore, that the filmmakers felt there was no need to balance the blasphemous epithets of the name of Jesus with positive references to Jesus. This is even more egregious when you consider that at least 79 percent of Americans say they are Christians.

Finally, after the movie is over, an explanation appears which says that about 25 minutes after Flight 93 crashed, Vice President Cheney “finally” gave the okay for military planes to shoot down any remaining hijacked planes. Up to this point, the movie was non-partisan, politically speaking. The use of the word “finally” is a gratuitous, unnecessary sign of political correctness or political spin.

Thus, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for UNITED 93 because of the violence, the foul language and the tense, realistic nature of the movie. Though the violence is not extreme, the movie’s tense, emotional scenes may be too disturbing and upsetting for many people.

Americans and their supporters around the world, not to mention many Christians, are still waiting for a good dramatic movie that rebukes the false religion of Islam, which has led to terrible days like 9/11. Until then, they may want to see the documentary IN THE FACE OF EVIL: REAGAN’S WAR IN WORD AND DEED, which has some good points to make about these subjects.