The Marine is a man of humility, who fuses his military training with a spiritual incentive to do God's work. He seeks no glory. When someone asks his name and he replies with the long title, "Marine Staff Sgt. David W. Larnes," the inquirer wants something shorter to remember with his heroism. "Staff sergeant," he says. He is a generic military hero, and the filmmaker concedes that he represents the point of view of many -- most -- Americans.
"World Trade Center" won't receive the adulation of "United 93." It lacks the suspense, the clarity and thematic cohesion of the story of the passengers who almost foiled the suicide bombers who crashed a fourth airliner into a Pennsylvania field on September 11. "World Trade Center" is more homespun, more grounded in the sloppy everyday struggle for survival of two men who can do nothing but talk and try to stay awake, and their families who can do nothing but go on living their lives. If the trivial banter of the men suggests an allegory of the human condition as they wait for Godot, the families dramatize the human comedy as lived in ordinary pity and fear.
The two men are courageous with a little "c" for not giving up hope, but they're denied acts of heroism. They volunteered to help victims in the rubble, but become victims before they can risk anything for anybody else.
There were moments in "World Trade Center" when I felt overwhelmed by the impotence and frustration of the characters. But their ordinary humanity, like the humanity of those who rescue them, lifts their story and moves it away from the mournful fate others suffered that day. We're left to reflect upon what's important in life at the edge of death, of men who talk about love for their wives and children, the homely satisfactions of hobbies and hopes.
The advertisements for "World Trade Center" describe it as our "defining moment," one of heroism rather than terrorism. There is heroism in the work of the rescuers, but in the depiction of danger amid the debris we're reminded again of the awful cruelty of the terrorists. Our defining moment will be what we do about them.