Dispensing political agendas, Paul Greengrass' United 93 is a dramatisation of the events of that world-changing morning, with particular focus given to the titular fourth plane in the attack that didn't make its target thanks to the passengers on board who overpowered the hijackers and crashed it into a field in Pennsylvania. With Ben Sliney, the FAA National Operations Manager whose first day of work was September 11, 2001, playing himself and real conversations from passengers of the doomed airliner faithfully recreated, the film strives for accuracy to the events and more than succeeds. The slow realisation something is off and the sheer shock that met the initial attack is hauntingly accurate. The film goes for none of the hyperbole or sentimentality that comes with traditional adaptations of real life tragedies (this is a trick Greengrass repeated in last year's Captain Phillips), which makes this an unbiased take and essential viewing for just about anyone living in the modern world. The final shot, with the passengers attempting to regain control of the plane as the ground spins into view, is one of the most emotionally wrought in the history of cinema and gets right to the core of what makes the September 11 attacks so harrowing.
