Flight 93 is something that I do not believe we will ever fully understand, not because of our limitations to cope with the facts but because the facts will not in my opinion ever be revealed to us. The events which occurred on 9/11 have been subject to much speculation and cause for many conspiracy theories, the film ‘Flight 93’ was created to show us ‘what happened’ on one of the planes whilst in the sky.

Please Note

Before reading this review please accept that I will be comparing the film with theories, facts and my opinions and therefore a review of the whole subject may become apparent, also due to the media coverage of this event I must stress that this is more of a documentary than a film and therefore the plot will be revealed in my text. Not because I want to spoil it for you, but because the plot is not a surprise if you were alive in 2001!

Flight 93 Outside of the Film

On September 11th 2001 a United Airlines flight was scheduled to fly from Newark International Airport to San Francisco this was flight 93.
The flight was hijacked by four terrorists and the plane was a part of the September 11th attacks which diverted three other planes into targets, The World Trade Centre and the Pentagon causing America to plunge into disbelief and tragedy to spread across the world.

Flight 93 is said to have been taken over by four Islamic terrorists who took control of the planes cockpit and threatened the passengers with a bomb, which has not been ever proven to have been on board, and according to families who spoke to passengers during the flight the bomb was not revealed.
In a brave attempt to regain control of the plane the passengers of Flight 93 rebelled against their attackers and the plane never reached its target which was suspected to be the White House or another popular and busy target or main city.

During the events many passengers made calls to their families and loved ones to say their goodbyes and to tell them of the events which were happening on the plane which eventually went down in a field in Pennsylvania killing all 40 passengers, the crew and the four hijackers.

In the Film

The events as written above are the ‘facts’ that we have been given and these are portrayed almost identically in the film.
The film follows the text book almost word for word with showing the passengers board the plane, get into the air then get hijacked by four young Islamic terrorists who then kill the pilots and take control of the cockpit.
The film then shows the emotional calls from the passengers to their most loved and eventually the passengers revolt and the plane hits ground in a field far from any main city.

Film or Documentary?

The film follows the ‘facts’ very closely the storyline is focused and does not dither from the subject of 9/11, although this production is movie length, with a cast and a reasonable budget make no mistake this is not film it is a documentary.

The director plays this wonderfully however and the documentary is made like a Hollywood movie, this of course ropes you into the story even further and at points throughout the film it is easy to forget that the film is based on a harrowing real life event.

The documentary is even structured like a movie, the beginning shows the passengers on the ground boarding the plane, it shows them in their natural environment, with their lovers, with their children, the scenes at the beginning really introduce the main characters and give an insight into their lives. This is of course to gripe the audience emotionally into the film and ensure they are able to relate to each character.

The middle of the film is the most tense and emotional part in which the passengers are made aware that their flight has now been hijacked and they are making emotional calls to their family and loved ones and planning how to get control of the plane.
This part of the film is very effective, after coming to know some of the passengers and crew it is very emotional to watch them speaking with their loved ones and this I think is the longest part of the film, but I would not suggest in anyway that it is dragged out or too long.

The ending of the film is quick, not very detailed like a documentary should be, although the ‘facts’ we are told dictate that each passengers body was found and identified, the film ends with the plane and bodies missing and this is where the documentary fails to inform and the film fails to impress.

Leaving many questions unanswered, and plenty of reasons to search the internet for the answers.

Cast

The cast in the film are listed below, you will see that they are not big names, the production was successful and budgeted on story and not on the people featured in it, I also think it would have been totally inappropriate to make a film about such emotional events and spend its proceeds on paying the wages of over rated actors however I thought that for the benefit of readers is was harmless to name a few actors -

Jeffrey Nording - Tom Burnett

Brennan Elliot - Todd Beamer

Kendall Cross - Deena Burnett

Ty Olson - Mark Bingham

Marilyn Norry - Mark Binghams Mother

Kirsten Williamson - Melodie Homer

Biski Gugushe - LeRoy Homer Jr

Acting

Terrorists

The hijacking of the flight was led by a man called Ziad Jarrah who was a part of the Al-Quaeda, he was apparently a well educated man from a wealthy Lebanon family background, he had studied for many different ranged degrees and was well travelled, however whilst living in Hamburg he is said to have become a devout Muslim with a radical group of followers and eventually moved to Afghanistan for a few months in which he met with Osama Bin Laden before obtaining a clean passport and visa so that he could move to Florida and take flying lessons as well as training in aspects of combat.

Jarrah is played in this film slightly differently to how I would have imagined the real man to have been. In the production it is not completely clear who the leader of the hijackers is until toward the end when he takes over the cockpit and starts to make demands to the other hijackers.
The young actor who plays Jarrah plays the part as it was written perfectly, he acts as a semi assertive yet scared man who does not seem to recognise the seriousness of the actions that he is undertaking.

Although the actor plays the part well, I do not think the part was written well. The actor does not in anyway show the intelligent or radical man that Jarrah is said to have been. He looks more naive and scared than I would have expected, the director has made him seem to be a young stupid man who is unaware off his actions, when I think in realty this well travelled and clever man was fully aware of the task he was proceeding with.

Along with Jarrah there were three other hijackers which were with him to scare the crew and passengers and to override the cockpit, these actors were also young and played their written parts well, however I cannot escape the feeling that the hijackers were portrayed as very limp and weak when in fact they were intelligent and manically religious nuts who managed to scare 40 passengers and take control of a Boeing 757 aircraft.

The limp characters created by the director were probably written this way to take the focus off of them and onto the scared passengers who were the victims and sorrow of this dreadful day, and I have to admit that although the hijackers were portrayed as young, naïve and scared, I did not feel any empathy for them throughout the whole of the film. And rightly so.

Passengers

There were only 37 passengers on board the plane, which was an unusual 20% of the planes load capacity, the 30 - 40 actors playing the parts of the passengers played their parts effectively considering it is almost impossible to consider the real ordeal that the people that day were experiencing.

The best part of the acting was the telephone conversations, the passengers were lost for words in most of them which I think was most likely how the real passengers felt, the emotions from the actors was realistic probably because the subject is very realistic and for Americans especially the subject of 9/11 and flight 93 is very upsetting and therefore many of the emotions on the film set were probably real.

I thought it was excellent the way that we were able to see around four or five passengers more closely, the film obviously could not follow each individual story so it focuses on around four or five so that the audience can relate to each one more closely.

As I have already stated, the film is more of a documentary, however instead of having a voice over to dictate the events, the stories and the ‘facts,’ the actors are given the task of telling the story and they tell it with their words, their emotions and their interactions. The story is told how it was intended and for this I credit the fantastic acting.

Families

Although it hard to imagine how scared a person would be on a hijacked plane, for me it is even harder to imagine a wife on the ground speaking to her husband, who is on a hijacked plane. Or a mother, talking to her daughter for the last time. The powerless feeling that these families must have had is unimaginable and the actors playing this hard part do it as well as they could’ve, and although these families will never have the justice they deserve the acting goes as far as to tell their soul destroying and frustrating stories.

My favourite acting from the families is from one of the wives who is speaking with her husband, she keeps walking round in circles, then she walks outside, then she sits on the floor, these are all the actions of someone who just does not know what to do and is entirely powerless to do anything anyway.

Most of the telephone calls were based on the real life calls made at the time and some of the answer phone messages can still be listened to online, however this is not something I have ever wanted to listen to.

Why DVD?

Although the events depicted are a part of our history now, the realism in the film is very morbid and not something which many would agree suitable to create and then sell as a DVD, however in 2006 the DVD was released and a significant amount of the proceeds was donated to the Flight 93 memorial fund. This was the reason that a few years ago I purchased the film, it was priced at something low like £4 when bought with a newspaper coupon, this was probably a good way to advertise the film and also advertise that proceeds are for a good cause.

I think that another reason for creating a film and DVD on the events was that even though the events will be remembered, the film is not just a tribute but also a document of as much information that I believe we will ever be allowed.

Around September 11th the media was riot with the events, but the main tragedies covered was that of the twin towers and the details of Flight 93 were not as publicised as the rest. The film was created to remind everyone of another important plane that day and I think that this was a nice way to remember the passengers who according to the film are absolute heroes and to show their families their heroic actions.

As well as being on DVD the production is also shown on TV every few months, and for some reason even though I have the DVD I always watch it, or some of it when it is on TV, I don’t think I have ever even watched it on my DVD.

Special effects, Soundtrack and Extras

The production although really a documentary is not low budget, the filming is pretty flawless and the scenes are captured correctly ensuring that all of the right information gets across to the viewers.
The film does not contain many special effects, apart from the odd scene of the plane in the air from the outside and even the crash

Pictures of Flight 93 (DVD)

This is the cover of the DVD, it is very simple, and does not say too much about the film

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scene is brief and low on detail.

The film is not jazzed up with amazing effects or a thrilling sound track and famous actors plastered with foundation, this is not an action film this is a real life drama and a real life tragedy which the director leaves as raw as possible so that the limelight is not taken away from the real victims, the passengers who died and the families who suffered the loss.

The extras on the DVD are the only thing that I have watched on the disc, there are not many features on the DVD but there are a few bits on the making of the film/documentary which I think are definitely worth a watch.
I really like that the DVD is not plastered with extras the simplicity is another mark of respect to the victims and their families.

Controversy

The subject of 9/11 is controversial all over the world, the director of this film steers clear of most of the controversy and conspiracy theories to make Flight 93 a respectable film, he keeps as close to the facts as possible (the facts as we know them) and they also released the film five years after the events. All of this made the film less shocking when it came out and did not upset a great deal of people or spark any more controversy.

Even though the dust will never settle for the families involved, the five year gap was left as a mark of respect for the families and I think that the film is portrayed in the most gentle way possible for such a shocking story

One theory

One of the main and most controversial theories regarding Flight 93 was that the plane was shot down, this theory does not change the fact that the passengers did revolt against the hijackers and that they also did call their families, however the theory suggests that the reason for the crash in Pennsylvania was due to the aeroplane being hit by a missile, this has been backed up by the fact that the debris of the plane was apparently scattered over a huge area covering about 6 miles and also the eyewitness accounts of a collection of people who saw and heard things at the time of the plane hitting the ground.

This theory is of course very different to the ending of the film and after seeing the film it is hard to understand this difference in events, however facts dictate that the debris could not have been blown as far as they were by the wind and there was eyewitnesses who say that the plane came down at a vertical angle and that the sound of an explosion was heard before the plane contacted the ground, suggesting it had been hit.

The effects of the film on the theories

There are obviously many theories regarding the crash of Flight 93, I have only outlined one of them, however, although the film was intended to be a respectable mark of the events, and was made to follow ‘facts’ the film raises so much curiosity that I believe even further theories have come from it.

In my own opinion I think that this was the directors expected responses to his film, in order to make his film successful all he had to do was keep to the ‘facts’ and make his film not seem controversial, just by doing this he would get the attention of all of the conspiracy theory seekers and people would be able to make their own minds up about the events regarding Flight 93 and 9/11.

What do I think?

My ideas change every time I watch this film, I do believe that the passengers attempted to take control of the plane in a heroic attempt to stop the plane from hitting another target and also to try and save their own lives.
However, the film shows that the government were aware of what was going on in the plane whilst it was up in the air, I did at one point think that the government and people in charge of the planes following Flight 93 may not have trusted the passengers to gain control, and may have used the opportunity of the flight being above a quiet location to stop the plane in its tracks, killing the passengers but also saving the lives of many people at the target.

This idea was put to me by a friend, and I did give it some serious consideration, however I am fully aware that we will never be informed of the full details and therefore I am also aware that anything could have happened. Making me unsure on what I believe now.

If you get time (lots of it) I really recommend that you Google ‘Flight 93 conspiracy theories’ even if you are not a believer there is such a document of information that it really moves your mind and will give you hours of different and scary thoughts about what sort of world we really live in.

Ratings

The film is really suitable for all audiences, apart from young children. The film, although made with a violent and adult storyline, does not contain a lot of violence and does not have any swearing in it.
However, the film is very emotional and therefore even though it is not rated an over 15, I am going to give it 15 as my personal rating.
The story is easy to follow, but hard to comprehend and so any audience watching it should be aware of the films content and also aware that it is not a movie, it is a documentary.

My opinion on the DVD

This documentary is once that I have watched over and over, not because it is a thrilling or enjoyable experience, but because it sparks so much interest for me, I feel like I am learning more and more every time I watch it.

However, earlier I mentioned that I do not watch this on my DVD copy and I only view it when it is on TV, this is because it is not a film that you would choose to watch, more like one that you feel you should watch. I would find it inappropriate if someone came over and said ‘can we watch Flight 93?’ the DVD is just a reminder to me of the events, and something I feel I should own.

I would recommend that you buy this, only if the copy you are buying is going to donate the proceeds to a memorial, if it is not, then watch this online, or wait for it to come onto TV, it is a recommended, but not enjoyable watch. It will also get your mind going so fast.

The film is easy to watch and can be seen over and over without it becoming boring, the director ensures that whilst educating you he is also making sure you feel the right emotions related to each part of the film, and it really is one to bring the tissues too.

The DVD isn’t expensive, so even if you’ve seen it, if the money is going somewhere helpful then buy it and just keep it.

xxxx