Retrospective Film Review

United 93 (2006) • 15 Years Later

A dramatised account of the last hours of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11th 2001.

Paul Greengrass’s United 93 breaks nearly every dramatic rule in the book: characters are barely developed at all, many narrative threads lead absolutely nowhere, and we know how it’s going to end before it’s even started. But it’s one of the most gripping and powerful mainstream movies of the last 20 years.

This isn’t only because of the momentousness of its subject matter and the way events are engraved in our collective memory. (For the generations who weren’t around in November 1963, September 11th 2001 is their “where were you when you heard Kennedy had been assassinated?” moment.) It’s also down to the bravura technical skills of Greengrass and his team, especially cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, the sound technicians, and composer John Powell.

In their hands the film starts gently, even reflectively, and then the drama’s dialled up and up and up, as one plane after another is crashed into New York and Washington D.C, as the authorities on the…