World Trade Centre

By: Major Issues

Director: Oliver Stone
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Maria Bello

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Listen up and listen good you… snivelling water chestnuts. There is nothing worse on God’s green earth than watching a man go down. Strike that. They only thing worse is spending two hours watching two men go down thanks to that collaborator, Oliver Stone.

What we’ve got here is the most solemn movie about the victims of war since Martin Sheen went up a river to find Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now.
These two police officers caught in the first strike hit on the World Trade Centre back in ’01 put it all on the line. They’re the sort of men that put a capital B on Brave. Here they are, risking their own necks to save a tower-full of civilians, and we’re forced to watch on as the building slowly descends on them? We can’tt call for back up. We can’t radio for a medic. Son, that’s worse than Chinese water torture for anyone who’s ever stood on the thin line between peace and war armed only with a standard issue rifle, bayonet, service pistol and three grenades.

What makes this movie that much harder to watch is the way the dishonourably discharged Stone makes us watch as these brave men’s family suffers. The last thing a solider needs to have in the back of his mind is that his family is suffering while he fights for life. Next thing we’ll have service men second-guessing their orders to go into battle because they’re too busy crying about their widowed wife and fatherless baby at home all weeping because they might die. Soon after that they’ll become desensitised to the whole affair and then what? There’ll be no more war damn it!

Verbatim:
Dominick Pezzulo: "Don't forget, Will. I tried to get you out, I tried to save you guys."

In a word: Harrowing