"You kept me alive!"
I wasn't skeptical when I was invited to a private screening of Oliver Stone's upcoming "World Trade Center" movie. I was downright cynical. As a conservative I've long considered so much of his work the bane of my existence. From "Platoon" to "Salvador" to "Born on the Fourth of July" to "JFK," and let's not forget last year's ghastly "Alexander," Stone has delivered one left-wing screed after another, specifically intended, I'm convinced, to bring my blood to the boiling point. When I learned a few months ago that he was working on a project about 9/11, I fully expected another tiresome, loathsome Bush-lied-thousands-died production designed to titillate the Michael Moore left-wing fringe. It is why, when the movie was ready for screening and my friend told me I was going to like it, I thought he was mad. But as a personal favor, I went. And by the time I digested that triumphant line, "You kept me alive!" I was ready to put everything I'd previously felt aside.
Let me be unequivocal. Stone has delivered a masterpiece.
You kept me alive. I wanted to preview this movie free from any outside influences, so I made it a point not to read anything about it in advance. I didn't know what viewers surely will know, namely that this film deals with the successful rescue of two trapped policemen in the rubble of the collapsed World Trade Center buildings. The emotional roller coaster was that much more pronounced for me, since I didn't know how the ordeal would end, but it makes no difference, really. When Officer John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) emerges from the rubble, is rushed to the hospital and, in the pandemonium, briefly is reunited with his wife, Donna (Maria Bello), greeting her with those words, you will weep, too.
It would be enough simply to plumb the story of the extraordinary rescue of these poor men, buried up to their necks for almost a day in broken concrete, twisted metal, dust and crushed glass -- the shattered, smoldering remains of what once were two proud skyscrapers, and now had become a shocking testimony to the reality that a worldwide terrorist enterprise successfully had attacked America. Add some awesome special effects -- ever wondered what it must sound, look and even feel like having a 110-story building come crashing down on you? -- and you'd have a box-office hit.