True story of Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin, two Port Authority police officers who rushed into the burning World Trade Center on 9/11 to help rescue people, but became trapped themselves when the tower collapsed. A race against time ensued to free them before their air ran out.
After all that publicity, you should know by now that Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" is about the dramatic, gut-wrenching rescue of two cops of the New York Port Authority at the time when America's sense of homeland security collapsed.
When we watched the Breaking News on that fateful day of Sept 11 2001, we kept telling ourselves that it was not a movie. That the events were real. Now, as we watch "World Trade Center", we keep reminding ourselves that this is just a movie. That the event is over...
Such is the impact we get from this docudrama that takes us back to 'Ground Zero' where some Americans experienced Hell on Earth. Stone opens the story with shots of 'old Manhattan' - the area where the Twin Towers stood as proud landmarks of the city skyline. Next, we follow John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena) to work at the Port Authority police station in what seems like a normal, routine day.
Then their world 'shakes' and when they learn - with disbelief - that Tower One of the World Trade Center has been hit by a plane, McLoughlin and his men head straight to the disaster area to evacuate the buildings. On the way, they get news that Tower Two has also been hit but they start to have doubts over the authenticity of the reports.
Now, while we already know what has happened and what will happen, scenes of the collapse of the Towers still horrify us, especially when we 'accompany' McLoughlin and Jimeno as they are trapped in the rubble, under all those smoke and dust, talking to each other, offering hope and prayers, and urging each other not to fall asleep. We share their confusion, their pain and their determination to survive in a situation that seems as bleak as hell. Yes, it is claustrophobic and stifling but Stone does not just leave us there.
He alternates the claustrophobia with scenes of McLoughlin's and Jimeno's families, waiting anxiously for news of their survival. As the two trapped cops 'chat' about their loved ones, we see how McLoughlin's wife Donna (Maria Bello) and her four children cope with their fears. We also see Jimeno's pregnant wife Allison (Maggie Gylenhaal) fighting morning sickness and how her family rally to render support.
Elsewhere, America is also coming to grips with the tragedy and the subplot, about David Karnes (Michael Shannon), an ex-Marine who flies from Connecticut to Ground Zero to help in the search and rescue, galvanises the fact that sometimes tragedy can turn ordinary people into heroes.
"Can you still see the light?" McLoughlin asks Jimeno when the cameras return to the rubble. By now, the two victims are semi-conscious and Jimeno's visions of Jesus Christ stir up doubts and superstition in the audience. Yes, we know they are going to make it but we still empathise with them during those long hours of doubt.
We must understand that the principal cast have added pressure to their roles since they must be both truthful and sympathetic to their real-life alter egos. On the whole, they seem to have accomplished that. Cage is effective as the 'Sarge' who confesses that people don't like him because "I don't smile a lot". Pena plays a loving husband, father and cop that anyone should be proud of.
"World Trade Center" and "United 93" are two movies that take us back to the dramas of 9/11. Both are heart-rending and compelling.
This is a poetic, moving and heartfelt account of what actually happened to two regular guys with regular lives who rushed into the World Trade Center to help others on that fateful day of September11.
Port Authority Officers John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena) crawled out of bed and started their day, just like any other day, in New York City on Sept 11, 2001. When the two hijacked airplanes hit the Twin Towers, they - along with hundreds of other officers - were called in to help in whatever way they could. Being on the beat and away from the news reports on television, they only had a sketchy account of the first plane's damage and did not realise that a second plane had struck and that the towers were in imminent danger of collapsing.
John McLoughlin was the older and wiser of the two officers, he being the veteran sergeant with hands-on experience of the 1993 bombings of the towers. When he called for volunteers to follow him into the building, he, as a man-of-a-few-words, was matter-of-fact and to the point. "As Always," he advises, "protect yourselves, watch each other's back." Only a handful responded, with Jimeno being the first to come forward. They were genuine in wanting to help but were each, more than a little scared. The magnitude of the disaster was not what any of them had ever been prepared for. Arriving at some form of plan and surveying the disaster before them as they began collecting oxygen tanks and other emergency equipment in the concourse area between the two towers, the building collapsed on them.
Director Oliver Stone's re-enactment of the fallen towers is as accurate as anybody can remember them. The twisted metal beams, showers of dust and slabs of concrete lying over tons of rubble looked as real as the footages seen on TV. The injured people, battered and bloodied and the uniformed rescuers in their hard hats running like ants over the ruins also looked authentic. Stone had help from the live footages which were cleverly interlaced so that the audience cannot tell the difference. That unforgettable scene of a person jumping to death from the tower is included.
And then there was the 'hole' itself, the fissure within the wreckage into which McLoughlin and Jimeno had fallen and were hopelessly pinned under. These were scenes nobody had seen before because they could only have come from the eyes of McLoughlin and Jimeno. McLoughlin was buried up to the neck, some 20ft deeper than Jimeno and was unable to move a muscle. Jimeno was better-off. He had a huge concrete slab lying on top of him and was mostly immobilised. To show how helpless he was in this position, flying cinders from an internal explosion burnt a hole in his pants and proceeded to scorch his flesh. Because he could not move a muscle, all he could do was yell in pain But Jimeno was able to move one arm and this helped him reach a broken pipe with dripping water. It was probably this that helped to keep him alive. That and his indomitable will to live.
A third officer was trapped along with the two men but he died soon after following another avalanche of rocks which rained on top of him. His death was pitiful and senseless.
That the two remaining men are heroes is undoubted. True, they did not manage to save anyone but for someone to survive in those conditions, in darkness without food and water for days on end and in danger of being burnt to death from gas explosions and more concrete collapse, surely makes them men of the greatest courage.
To ward off unconsciousness which could lead to death, McLaughlin and Jimeno talked to each other. They knew that if one of them were to let go, the other would follow.
Stone used two plot threads to inter-cut between scenes of McLaughlin and Jimeno trapped in the rubble and the situation in the men's homes. The anguish and uncertainty of their wives and families were followed with flashbacks of their memories of each other and their nervousness in waiting for news of their husbands. Maria Bello who plays Donna, McLoughlin's wife, does a convincing job of portraying a woman who trying to put a brave face forward to hold her family from cracking up. Maggie Gyllenhaal as the five-month pregnant Allison, Jimeno's wife, is equally as good in showing signs of unravelling.
Cage and Pena, restricted to acting from the neck up, give an extremely moving account of the officers' plight. Nothing is overdone. Cage, especially, is transfixing. He brings out what it feels like to come so close to death but yet, is held back from stepping over the brink by thoughts of his wife and kids. It is the only thread that holds him on to life. When the real McLoughlin was pulled out from the rubble, he had to be put under a chemically-induced coma to undergo 27 surgeries. McLoughlin now walks with a limp and is retired from the force.
Last but not least of the heroes is ex-Marine David Karnes, a real life person played by Michael Shannon. If it wasn't for people like him - resolute in his intention to help despite the orders to pull out - McLoughlin and Jimeno would not be alive today.
Screenwriter Andrea Berloff put together a script that is "everyday" and believable. There are no poignant speeches, just everyday talk that anyone would hear in the confusion of a calamity. Kudos to Oliver Stone and the cast for this moving tribute to the heroes of WTC.
