World Trade Center (2006)
Average Rating: 6.7/10
Reviews Counted: 222
Fresh: 152 | Rotten: 70
As a visually stunning tribute to lives lost in tragedy, World Trade Center succeeds unequivocally, and it is more politically muted than many of Stone's other works.
Average Rating: 6.9/10
Critic Reviews: 47
Fresh: 34 | Rotten: 13
As a visually stunning tribute to lives lost in tragedy, World Trade Center succeeds unequivocally, and it is more politically muted than many of Stone's other works.
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Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 342,048
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Movie Info
Director Oliver Stone once again offers a powerful and provocative story based on real-life events in this drama. Sergeant John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and William J. Jimeno (Michael Peña) were two officers assigned to New York City's Port Authority who were working their beats on a quiet day in early fall when they received an emergency call. The day was September 11, 2001, and McLoughlin and Jimeno were among the policemen who attempted to evacuate the World Trade Center towers after they
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Cast
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Nicolas Cage
John McLoughlin -
Michael Peña
Will Jimeno -
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Allison Jimeno -
Maria Bello
Donna McLoughlin -
Stephen Dorff
Scott Strauss -
Jay Hernandez
Dominick Pezzulo -
Michael Shannon
Dave Karnes -
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All Critics (228) | Top Critics (47) | Fresh (158) | Rotten (70) | DVD (27)
(Director Oliver) Stone has concentrated on one of the catastrophe's stories and has fashioned it well -- with almost palpable physical detail, and with performances that never sink to exploitation.
Top CriticDestiny pervades the project, and anyone who expected Stone to toe anything other than the company line was gravely mistaken.
[World Trade Center] doesn't pretend to encompass the entire catastrophe of 9/11, and that is its great negative virtue.
The world may not make sense anymore, but Oliver Stone, a warrior still, celebrating courage and endurance, has, in his own way, come home.
[T]here's much discussion about whether audiences are 'ready' to see a mainstream movie about the events of 9/11... That's your choice, but you'll be missing one of the best films of the year.
The story of what they experienced is gripping and inspiring, but however true it is to their lives... the way it's told restricts what the movie can say about the larger tragedy.
A questioning artist neutering himself for the sake of uplift
A tentative mixture of tearjerker and disaster movie, cautious due to the requirement that it bear witness to the true-life heroism, staying within the tonal range that is sanctioned for American films depicting 9/11.
Inspiring 9/11 account too much for younger kids.
World Trade Center is not a great film. It barely passes as a good one. For a film that should have hollowed out its audience, I walked out strangely unmoved.
For all its noble intent the film brings to celluloid life makes just about every fear anyone had about a Hollywood treatment of the 9/11 tragedy.
No particular reason to exist other than to garland itself with medals for telling an Uplifting True Story About Good Men.
A loving, respectful, much-deserved tribute.
Stone rolls out the victim card minus historical context.
Stone rolls out the victim card minus historical context.
It's 9/11 ingeniously structured as the basis of a Beckett play.
An emotional and gripping two hours plus that rarely flags.
I began to feel as if Stone were singling out the 'decent' people of America and making this story theirs alone.
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"A True Story of Courage and Survival."
World Trade Center is a sad, moving film from Oliver Stone that tells the story from a couple of cops and their families point of view. The film isn't necessarily a thrilling movie to watch in standard terms, but there is a great sense of suspense, especially if you don't know what happens. It's hard to watch at times because the emotions seem so real, but there's no way you'll look away from the screen. This is a story that needed to be told and thankfully it was.
Port Atlantic cops respond to a plane flying into the World Trad Center. There's rumors amongst them that the second building got hit too, but none of them know for sure what is going on. The sergeant decides to take a team into tower one to try to save anyone they can, but as soon as they are about to go up, something happens. They don't really know what, but it leaves most of the team dead and a few of them trapped beneath the rubble. The only way they can survive is by trying to stay awake until someone finds them beneath all of the rubble.
This isn't Oliver Stone's best movie, but it is just like most of his, in that it is extremely important. You'd be surprised to see that Stone doesn't take a political stance on the attacks, which really surprised me the first time I saw it. Instead, he shows us that day from the vantage point of a few cops and they didn't really have any idea what was going on. We almost relive the day as we watch news footage and see everyone crying. It's not a movie about the attacks, but a movie about two cops and their fight for survival.
The cast brings out the most in this movie. I know everyone has their own opinion on Nicholas Cage, but I thought this was one of his best roles in the last 10 years or so. Also, another standout is Michael Shannon as an un-active marine that makes his way to Ground Zero to try to find any survivors. The movie is told with a true sense of humanity and caring about others lives even when it could cost them theirs. World Trade Center is a movie that everyone needs to see once.