I never thought that I would find myself watching an Oliver Stone movie,
much less approving of it. But last Wednesday my wife and I went to a
large movie complex where we took in the movie titled "World Trade
Center." We and one other lady were the only people in the theater. A
second theater in this complex had another showing of "World Trade
Center" a half hour later. I saw no evidence that patronage would be any
better for that screen.
I do not know what the count is for the revenue generated by this movie.
It obviously is not a barnburner. That is a shame. While I certainly do
not want to make Stone rich, he deserves credit for having produced this
movie. The movie centers around two men who were trapped in the rubble
of the Trade Center implosion. They were almost dead when Marines
rescued them. There were 20 people pulled from the rubble alive. These
two were numbers 18 and 19.
Both Joyce and I were moved by the movie. I was very uncomfortable as I
was fixated on the men and their efforts to keep each other alive.
Joyce, however, said she was disappointed. She thought the movie should
have shown the terrorists boarding the planes and the fact that in some
cases there was concern about them on the part of what is now known as
Homeland Security. She has a point. This movie vividly portrays the real
suffering that 9/11 caused in the case of two men who were luckier than
hundreds of other policemen and firemen. But it said nothing about who
was responsible for this horrific act. The closest the movie came to
letting people know what kind of men were behind this was when a fireman
in Sheboygan, Wisconsin was watching the TV screen and as he saw the
second plane hit he yelled "Bastards," whereupon he and his company
drove to New York to provide relief and refreshments to those who were
trying to find survivors.
We need to keep the memory of 9/11 alive-not only those 3,000 people who
were killed in New York, in the Pentagon and in a field in rural
Pennsylvania but those who did this dastardly deed. The Islamofacists
were at war with the United States for years prior to 9/11. But each
incident was isolated and the leadership at the time did not connect the
dots. Once 9/11 occurred it became clear that this is a deadly enemy.
9/11 was followed by the Madrid commuter train bombings and the London
Underground and bus bombings. These were followed recently by the
uncovering of the plot to blow up a German railway station and more
recently the very clear plot to bring down 10 to 12 planes between
London and the United States.