"United 93" documents real drama

"United 93" will send you out of the theater sputtering, weeping and shaking like few Hollywood films in recent memory. This is the 9/11 movie that will catapult you out from the safety blanket under which five years of slow forgetting have carefully tucked you. Grueling and visceral, the movie channels the real-life gravity of the terrorist attacks through smart, unpretentious filmmaking to produce a brutally emotional work.

Understated in its aims and effective in its impact, "United 93" is actually little more than a dramatization of the events of that morning. Unknown actors portray the people on the titular flight, the only of the four hijacked planes that did not hit its target. The film is neither "cinematic" nor "dramatic" in the traditional sense. In fact, it manages to out-documentary most documentaries, which often manipulate truth to promote their directors' agendas. "United 93" uses truth not to lionize, invent or infer, but simply to get back to the initial impressions of the attack, before they were diluted and warped by age and opportunistic politicians.

The day of Sept. 11, 2001, begins in this film with a serene normalcy — a telltale Hollywood sign that something is going to go horribly wrong. Flight attendants gossip as they stroll across a gleaming terminal. An air traffic controller, looking at a national weather forecast, declares that it's going to be a "good day on the East Coast." The cheap irony of these early shots, which seem pulled straight from kitschy late-'70s disaster flicks, is abandoned as air traffic control discovers that four planes have been hijacked.

Director Paul Greengrass tells the too-familiar story with swift brush strokes, roughly cutting from one scene to the next, creating a jarring effect. His highly impressionistic style works because the movie is about events so recent that the audience does not need a constant reminder of what is going on. Greengrass envelops his audience in the raw intensity of his cinematic experience.

And intense it is. Greengrass navigates the emotional and physical trauma of a hijacking and passenger rebellion with sparseness and economy. The claustrophobia of the plane is communicated through sometimes painful closeups. As the passengers secretively plan their revolt, the camera often crouches uncomfortably with the passengers to hide from the hijackers. And as the plane enters its death spiral, Greengrass' camera gives us a disorienting shot of hands grabbing futilely for the plane's controls.

"United 93" premiered on opening night of the TriBeCa Film Festival this year, an event founded in the wake of 9/11 to get lower Manhattan's mind off the tragedy. "United 93," by contrast, is intended to do exactly the opposite. It is a conscious attempt to get the nation's mind back on that day five years ago. Some have said the film is "too soon," as if it were siphoning the emotional weight of the attack to lure audiences. But "United 93" is neither cheap nor exploitative.

Greengrass does not appropriate his taut emotional sketch to make partisan statements, demonize Islam or make any other "big points," justified or otherwise. The only editorializing to be found is in the depiction of the military and aviation bureaucrats hopelessly wading through red tape to gain clearance for decisive action; Greengrass hints at the inefficacy of the government's response that morning. This is a film as relevant and appropriate today as it would be if it were released 10 years from now: it is spotlessly honest, both in intentions and execution.

There is something about national disasters that makes their representation on film particularly tricky. "United 93" had its work cut out for it; it could not simply be "the first 9/11 film" in order to be declared good or momentous. It is as much Greengrass' deft filmmaking as the tragedy's historical magnitude that makes "United 93" important and meaningful. It is a fitting monument to the heroes of Flight 93, but also reminds us that Hollywood studios can still make films that matter.