Weekend: Where heroes walk

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Where heroes walk

By STEVE PERSALL
Published August 3, 2006

Earlier this year United 93 proved a large number of Americans are willing to revisit the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in cinematic form. The admiring reception for Paul Greengrass' low-budget, quasidocumentary set a promising precedent for World Trade Center (PG-13), the first conventionally Hollywood-style movie on the subject.

United 93 didn't have celebrity actors; World Trade Center has Nicolas Cage, Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal. United 93 contained minimal special effects, ending at the moment a hijacked airliner crashed into a Pennsylvania field. World Trade Center expensively re-creates the devastation of the two hijacked jets flying into the Twin Towers. United 93 didn't bother with character development with its large cast and real-time design; World Trade Center chiefly focuses on four people affected by the 9/11 attacks.

Most of all, United 93 didn't have Oliver Stone and his muckraking reputation aboard. That caused some people to worry during production that Stone (JFK, Platoon, Nixon) would grind another political ax or insult the victims' memories. They can relax; World Trade Center is foremost a tribute to their memories and to the emergency responders who tried to save them. No conspiracies, no politics, just heroism in the face of unimaginable fear.

Cage plays Port Authority police sergeant John McLoughlin, who, along with officer Will Jimeno (Michael Pena), was buried under tons of rubble after the towers collapsed. Meanwhile, their wives (Bello and Gyllenhaal, respectively) nervously await any news about their husbands. World Trade Center is closely based on history but is actually about humanity, how we cope with extraordinary circumstances and rise above them.

World Trade Center opens nationwide Wednesday. A review will be published Tuesday in Floridian. Friday's Floridian section features an interview with the real-life Will and Allison Jimeno, and on Sunday we feature an interview with Stone about his film and controversial image.

Film

Where heroes walk