United 93 (film)

United 93
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Paul Greengrass
Produced by	Paul Greengrass Tim Bevan Eric Fellner Lloyd Levin
Written by	Paul Greengrass
Starring	Khalid Abdalla Christian Clemenson Cheyenne Jackson J.J. Johnson Sarmed al-Samarrai David Alan Basche
Music by	John Powell
Cinematography	Barry Ackroyd
Editing by	Clare Douglas Richard Pearson Christopher Rouse
Studio	StudioCanal Working Title SKE Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Pictures (US) United International Pictures (UK) Buena Vista International (France)
Release dates	April 28, 2006 (2006-04-28)
Running time	110 minutes[1]
Country	United States United Kingdom France
Language	English
Budget	$15 million[2]
Box office	$76,286,096[2]

United 93 is a 2006 drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Paul Greengrass that chronicles events aboard United Airlines Flight 93,^[3] which was hijacked during the September 11 attacks. The film attempts to recount with as much veracity as possible (there is a disclaimer that some imagination had to be used) and in real time (from the flight's takeoff) what has come to be known in the United States as an iconic moment. According to the filmmakers, the film was made with the cooperation of all of the passengers' families.^[4]

United 93 premiered on April 26, 2006 at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, a festival founded to celebrate New York City as a major film making center and to contribute towards the long-term recovery of Lower Manhattan.^[5] Several family members of the passengers aboard the flight attended the premiere to show their support.

The film opened nationwide in North America on April 28, 2006. Ten percent of the gross from the three-day opening weekend was promised toward a donation to create a memorial for the victims of Flight 93.^[6] United 93 grossed $31.4 million in the United States, and $76.3 million worldwide.^[2][7]

Plot

On the morning of 9/11 four Isalmic terrorists and al-Qaeda members Ziad Jarrah, Ahmed al-Haznawi, Saeed al-Ghamdi and Ahmed al-Nami prepare for their upcoming suicide attack on United 93. Jarrah who is the ring-leader leaves one hotel with al-Haznawi in New York City after they pray to Allah while al-Ghamdi and al-Nami leave another New York City hotel. The quartet arrive at Newark Liberty International airport and get past security without fail. They wait at a gate with their future victims including Tom Burnett, Todd Beamer & Honor Elizabeth Waio. Mark Bingham narrowly catches his connection to San Francisco and is the last passenger to board. After 40 minutes of delay the plane takes off with 33 people including the hijackers onboard.

Elsewhere at Cleveland Control Centre the newly promoted manager Ben Sliney and his staff are dealing with a plane that is apparently hijacked American Flight 11 from Boston headed for Los Angles after hearing Muhammad Atta saying on the radio "We have some planes". Flight 11 at 8.46 am crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Centre much to Ben Sliney's and his staff's horror. Soon after another plane United 175 also from Boston to Los Angles too is hijacked and the plane crashing into the south tower of the World Trade Centre at 9.03 am is witnessed from those at the control tower of Newark Liberty International airport. Ben and his staff discover they are dealing with several hijackings and orders the army to be on the lookout for Flight 77 which is also hijacked. Despite their efforts Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon which is live on CNN. Ben then has the air-space closed and orders all flights leaving and entering the United States to be grounded.

On United 93 Jarrah and his fellow terrorists wait for the right moment to begin their assault. After al-Haznawi returns from a toilet wearing an artificial bomb he made around his torso, al-Ghamdi grabs hold of one of the air hostesses Debbie Welsh. At this point the passengers frantically retreat to the rear of the plane after al-Haznawi stabs a passenger and displays the "bomb". Jarrah and al-Ghamdi threaten Debbie to let them into the cockpit and "nobody will be hurt". Despite this captain Jason Dahl and co-pilot Leroy Homer are stabbed to death by al-Ghamdi and he then kills Debbie to presumably silence her. Jarrah and al-Ghamdi take over the cockpit with Jarrah flying the plane. Jarrah turns the plane back to the East Coast causing the passengers to think they are going back to the airport. However after another flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw sees the bodies of Debbie and the pilots, the passengers discovering the Pentagon had been attacked from their families on airphones and Jarrah flying the plane at low attidue they discover the plane is hijacked and is going to crash. The passengers decide to retake the plane with Donald Freeman Greene volunteering to fly the plane as he had experience flying aircraft. The passengers after making final calls to friends and families wait for the moment to save the plane. Some of the male passengers advance forward and kill both al-Haznawi and al-Nami. Seeing this al-Ghamdi orders Jarrah to put the plane down, knowing they'll never reach their intended target the White House/Capitol. Despite this the passengers break down the door with a food cart and battle both hijackers over the controls. Jarrah though puts the plane into a nosedive and the aircraft goes upside down before finally stalling and crashes into Pennsylvania killing everyone onboard.

Cast

Production

The film was the first Hollywood feature to draw its narrative directly from the September 11, 2001 attacks. Passengers were portrayed in the film mostly by professional, but relatively unknown, actors (Tom Burnett, for instance, is played by Christian Clemenson, who has since appeared on Boston Legal and CSI: Miami). The roles of one of the flight attendants, the two pilots, and many other airline personnel were filled by actual airline employees. Some participants in the real-life events play themselves, notably FAA operations manager Ben Sliney.

The dialogue, which was mostly improvised during rehearsals Greengrass held with the cast, was based on face-to-face interviews between actors and families of those they portray. Almost none of the passengers in the film are referred to by their names. Their identities remain anonymous, emphasizing the group effort over any individual heroics (and also portraying the fact that strangers on an airplane would not know one another's names). Much of the dialogue uses technical authenticity rather than theatrical embellishments, such as talk about if a plane has "Squawked 7500." During production, the actors playing the crew and the passengers of the flight were put in separate hotels from the actors portraying the hijackers, even eating their meals separately, ostensibly to create an air of antagonism in the film between the two groups.

Filming took place on a 20-year-old reclaimed Boeing 757, formerly operated by MyTravel Airways, at Pinewood Studios near London from October until December 2005. The cockpit was built by Flightdeck solutions. The location was chosen both for its financial incentives and to shield actors from unwanted public scrutiny they might have received in the U.S.^[8] Action was filmed with handheld cameras, chosen for their versatility on the close-quarter sets and to create a sense of immediacy. Exterior airport sequences were shot on location at Newark Liberty International Airport, while interiors were shot back in England at London Stansted Airport. A few scenes were also shot in Washington, D.C. and Boston. In addition, an opening sequence set in Afghanistan was shot in Morocco, but it was cut from the film before release.

The title was changed from Flight 93 to United 93 in March 2006, to differentiate it from the A&E TV film. Shortly thereafter, the film was given an R rating by the Motion Picture Association of America for "language, and some intense sequences of terror and violence."^[9] Universal Pictures appealed this rating, but it was rejected. The film was released in U.S. cinemas on April 28, 2006. It opened second in the weekend box office behind RV, but it netted a slightly higher per-screen average.

Initial screenings ended with the closing credits line "America's War on Terror had begun." This was replaced in the release version with '"Dedicated to the memory of all those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001."^[10]

After trailers for the film began circulating in cinemas, there were calls for Universal Studios to pull them, due to the upset and surprise caused to some audience members.^[11] One theatre in Manhattan pulled the trailer after audience complaints.^[6]

The Iraqi-born, London-based actor Sarmed al-Samarrai, who plays a hijacker in the film, was reportedly denied a visa by United States immigration authorities when he applied to visit New York City to attend the premiere, despite having already been granted asylum in the United Kingdom since the 1990s. The reason reported to have been given was that he had once been a conscripted member of the Iraqi Army — although this was also the grounds for his refugee status after his desertion in 1993.^[12] Other sources say that he applied late for his visa and that it was not denied.^[13]

Historical background

The real United Airlines Flight 93 was a Boeing 757-222 flight that regularly flew from Newark International Airport (now known as Newark Liberty International Airport) in Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California. On September 11, 2001, the aircraft on the flight was one of the four planes hijacked as part of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, possibly intended to crash into and destroy the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C. It was the only plane out of all four hijacked that did not reach its intended target, instead crashing in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, near Shanksville, about 150 miles (ca 240 km) northwest of Washington.

The cockpit voice recorder tape from United Flight 93 has never been made public; however the transcript was made public after the film was completed, shedding more light on what actually happened in the final 30 minutes before the plane crashed. In some parts, it may contradict the choices made by the filmmaker in terms of some dialogue and specific aspects of the event. For example, the pilots, Jason Dahl and LeRoy Homer, are shown in the film to be killed by the terrorists immediately as they are hijacking the plane. Some statements made by the terrorists in the transcript of the cockpit voice recorder tape,^[14] as well as moans heard in the background inside the cockpit,^[15] raised doubts that both pilots were indeed dead before the plane crashed; however, other documentary evidence from the 9/11 Commission Report indicated that at least one passenger reported in a cell phone call seeing two bodies, possibly the pilots, lying dead on the floor outside the cockpit after the hijacking.^[16]

The film has been criticized for its portrayal of German passenger Christian Adams, who is the only passenger portrayed as counseling appeasement, despite a lack of evidence that he did so. It was also reported that Adams's widow did not cooperate with the filmmakers because it was too painful.^[17] Erich Redman, who portrayed Adams in the film, said he did not intend to portray Adams as cowardly but as a man who "never made rash decisions and everything he did was always well-considered."^[17]

Reception

Critical response

United 93 was one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2006. Roger Ebert, Michael Medved, Peter Travers, and James Berardinelli all awarded it four stars. It was termed "one of the most moving films of the year" by Peter Travers in Rolling Stone. It holds an average 91% "Fresh" rating from the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes,^[18] as well as a 90% rating on Metacritic, where the film appears on 39 US top ten lists, more than any other 2006 film on the site,^[19] (although the 2006 film with the highest average score on the site is the 1969 Army of Shadows).^[20][21] The film was ranked #1 on 47 lists (the most of any 2006 film).^[22]

At the website Movie City News, which ranks 250 critics lists and awards point values for list-placement, United 93 ranks as the #1 movie of 2006^[23][24][25] with a score of 917.5 points.

The film has been cited as a favorite by filmmaker John Waters, who presented it as his annual selection within the 2010 Maryland Film Festival.

US top ten lists

Only two films (The Departed and The Queen) appeared on more top ten lists of the best films of 2006 than United 93, and no film received more #1 mentions:^[19]

Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal and Steven Rea of The Philadelphia Inquirer named it among the top ten best films of 2006.^[19]

Accolades

United 93 received numerous awards and nominations from film critics and guilds. Ultimately, the film received two Academy Award nominations, including Best Director, at the 79th Academy Awards and 6 BAFTA nominations, including Best British Film, at the 60th British Academy Film Awards winning two for Best Director and Best Film Editing.

Home media

United 93 was released to DVD on September 5, 2006, in both widescreen and fullscreen. Also released was a 2-disc Special Limited Edition in widescreen. A Blu-ray Disc version was released on September 6, 2011.^[28]

See also

• List of cultural references to the September 11 attacks
• The 9/11 Commission Report
• The Flight that Fought Back
• Flight 93, television film
• World Trade Center, film
• I Missed Flight 93
• United 300

References

External links

• Official website
• United 93 at the Internet Movie Database
• United 93 at Box Office Mojo
• United 93 at Rotten Tomatoes
• United 93 at Metacritic
• German 9/11 Victim Defamed in 'United 93 (Review focusing on the stereotyping and politics)
• Hijacking the Hijacking, the problem with the United 93 films By Ron Rosenbaum, on Slate.com
• Investigating 'United 93': Researching and Honoring a Catastrophe: Part I by Uri Lessing
• Investigating 'United 93': Researching and Honoring a Catastrophe: Part II by Uri Lessing

v t e United Airlines Flight 93 Core topics Newark Liberty International Airport Flight 93 conspiracy theories Hijackers Ziad Jarrah Ahmed al-Nami Saeed al-Ghamdi Ahmed al-Haznawi Passengers Todd Beamer Mark Bingham Tom Burnett Joseph DeLuca Jeremy Glick Lauren Grandcolas LeRoy Homer, Jr. Crash locations Shanksville, Pennsylvania Somerset County, Pennsylvania Stonycreek Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania Films United 93 Flight 93 The Flight That Fought Back I Missed Flight 93 Memorials Flight 93 National Memorial Temporary memorial Mall of America Flight 93 Memorial Highway West Coast Flight 93 Memorial USS Somerset Miscellaneous Let's roll Delta Air Lines Flight 1989 Steven O'Brien Flight of Valor Wikinews Commons Category