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United 93

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United 93 (2006)

91%
89%
89%
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91 %
Reviews Counted: 199 Fresh: 181  Rotten:18 Average Rating: 8.2/10
 
Consensus: Potent and sobering, United 93 is even more gut-wrenching because the outcome is already known. While difficult to watch, director Paul Greengrass' film has been made with skill and treats the subject matter with respect, never resorting to the aggrandizement of which Hollywood has sometimes been accused. Especially effective is the cast of mostly unknown actors, who portray the passengers of the doomed flight as ordinary people who respond with bravery to extraordinary circumstances.
 

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The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins

Theatrical Release: Apr 28, 2006 Wide

Box Office: $31,471,430

Synopsis: UNITED 93, director Paul Greengrass's meticulous reconstruction of the events surrounding the crash--the result of a heroic struggle between the passengers and hijackers--of the fourth plane to be hijacked on September 11, 2001, is a landmark in filmmaking. Greengrass has chosen the... UNITED 93, director Paul Greengrass's meticulous reconstruction of the events surrounding the crash--the result of a heroic struggle between the passengers and hijackers--of the fourth plane to be hijacked on September 11, 2001, is a landmark in filmmaking. Greengrass has chosen the most politically and emotionally charged source material available to an artist in the early 21st century, and shaped it into a psychologically draining, terrifyingly real, and technically brilliant film. Like his first feature-length work, BLOODY SUNDAY, UNITED 93 doesn't follow a traditional cinematic narrative structure; via hand-held cameras, grainy DV stock, and frenetic editing, it instead presents a visceral (at times sickening) in-the-moment documentary-style experience that maximizes the film's unavoidable air of tension and dread without being crassly manipulative. Yet for all of its precision and craft, UNITED 93 still depicts one of the most terrifying ordeals the United States has ever had to face--and that it was released less than five years after those events took place plays an undeniably enormous role in how the film is received. It is impossible to watch UNITED 93 and not be profoundly moved, whether that emotion is fear, sadness, anxiety, or pure rage. And it is an emotional catharsis far removed from what is the filmmaker's delicate hand and deft touch. Greengrass, though, is quite fearless in his depiction of the chaos of the day--the President is frustratingly missing; the FAC, NORAD, and local air-traffic control centers are shown in a disoriented panic; and the terrorists are brutal and remorseless--and, to his credit, he avoids soft-pedaling any political agenda and doesn't blindly canonize the flight's passengers. Rather, their heroism is treated as the product of a logical decision made by ordinary men and women who found themselves in the most extraordinary and illogical of situations. And that, ultimately, is where the power of UNITED 93 lies. [More]

Genre: Dramas

Starring: Lewis Alsamari, J. J. Johnson, Gary Commock, Trish Gates, Polly Adams

Director: Paul Greengrass
Composer: John Powell
Screenwriter: Paul Greengrass

DVD Info

Release:

Sep 5, 2006

[DVD Details]

DVD Features:

  • Region 1
  • Snap Case
  • Full Frame - 1.33

Audio:

  • Dolby Digital Surround Sound 5.1 - English, French, Spanish
  • Dolby Digital DVS 2.0 - English
  • Subtitles - English SDH, French, Spanish - Optional

Additional Release Material:

  • Commentaries - 1. Paul Greengrass - Director
  • Featurettes - 1. "United 93 - The Families and the Film: Discover the Real-Life Stories Behind the Brave Passengers and Crew Aboard United Flight 93 Through Interviews With Their Familes"

Text and Photo Galleries:

  • "Memorial Pages - The Passengers and Crew of United Flight 93 are Remembered with 40 Written Biographies"

Buy It On DVD

Reviews

 
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Ratings Image
10/10

This is not a film you go to for enjoyment, but because you have a duty to endure it.

Full Review | comment Comment
02/28/08
Brandon Fibbs
BrandonFibbs.com
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review | comment Comment
11/01/07
David Ansen
Newsweek
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
5/5

a real-time reconstruction of events on the doomed flight that manages to encapsulate all the anxieties and sorrows of our age.

Full Review | comment Comment
08/10/07
Anton Bitel
Eye for Film
Ratings Image
4/5

I can say that United 93 has been done well -- with intelligence, compassion, efficiency -- and yet still question whether it was worth doing.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/25/07
Rob Gonsalves
eFilmCritic.com
Ratings Image
3.5/4

Click to read the article

Full Review | comment Comment
07/14/07
Joe Lozito
Big Picture Big Sound
Ratings Image
N/A

The best filmmaking brings flesh to bone and there are few dancing skeletons that could use more humanity than 9/11.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/28/07
Kevin Koehler
Pretentious Musings
Ratings Image
N/A

A supreme achievement.

Full Review | comment Comment
03/01/07
Doris Toumarkine
Film Journal International
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4/4

Amazingly detailed in its narrative cohesion and editing, United 93 is a noble tribute to the tragedy of 9/11.

Full Review | comment Comment
02/07/07
Wesley Lovell
Oscar Guy
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review | comment Comment
01/20/07
Philip French
Observer [UK]
Ratings Image
A-

Greengrass recreates the attacks on the World Trade Center utilizing existing news footage and it still retains the horror of that day. Despite knowing the ultimate outcome of this film, UNITED 93 is a harrowing and important film.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/12/07
Ted Murphy
Murphy's Movie Reviews
Ratings Image
4/4

Cinema verite at its very best!

Full Review | comment Comment
01/04/07
Kam Williams
AALBC.com
Ratings Image
3.5/4

Unlike 'World Trade Center,' this harrowing chronicle has scarcely a hint of Hollywood. ...'United 93'... thrusts itself into the heart of the action, whether you're ready to go there or not.

Full Review | comment Comment
12/28/06
James Sanford
Kalamazoo Gazette
Ratings Image
N/A

Greengrass takes pains to keep events believable and relatively unrhetorical, rejecting entertainment for the sake of sober reflection, though one has to ask how edifying this is apart from its reduction of the standard myths.

Full Review | comment Comment
12/26/06
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
4/4

...a story about the resolve of a group of strangers that banded together in the most difficult of times to do what they knew in their hearts was right.

Full Review | comment Comment
12/13/06
Michael A. Smith
Nolan's Pop Culture Review
Ratings Image
4/4

In a way, the film is a memorial. It honors the passengers who fought back by visualizing their experience and imprinting it on our screens for years to come.

Full Review | comment Comment
11/10/06
Peter T. Chattaway
Christianity Today
Ratings Image
3/5

Un tenso y atrapante relato que imagina, con un realismo casi documental, lo que pudo haber sucedido a bordo del fatídico vuelo.

Full Review | comment Comment
11/07/06
Enrique Buchichio
Uruguay Total
Ratings Image
5/5

Impossible to recommend as a great Friday night out, yet agonisingly vital as thought-urging cinema.

Full Review | comment Comment
11/04/06
Dan Jolin
Empire Magazine
Ratings Image
B

It's a film for our time.

Full Review | comment Comment
11/02/06
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ratings Image
3.5/4

Greengrass se limita a observar, y nos entrega por completo a los espectadores la responsabilidad de alcanzar conclusiones.

Full Review | comment Comment
10/05/06
Flavio J. Arosemena
Doncinema.com
Ratings Image
N/A

United 93 terrifyingly conveys the nature of the threat facing the world today and poignantly conveys onscreen the decision by a few brave individuals to fight back.

Full Review | comment Comment
09/28/06
Ali Jaafar
Sight and Sound
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