World Trade Center: Fitting Tribute to September 11 Heroes

An excellent way to mark the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks is to see Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center”. But beware. This emotionally wrenching, PG-13 film is not for the squeamish. Like the live footage broadcast around the globe on that fateful day, “World Trade Center” irresistibly sears itself into the viewer’s mind.

Video clips of New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and President George W. Bush give the film authenticity, but “World Trade Center” is not a docudrama. Its primary strength lies in the emotional bond that develops between two Port Authority cops trapped twenty feet beneath the rubble while their families helplessly agonize.

Sergeant John McLaughlin, played by a weather-beaten Nicholas Cage, is assigned to help evacuate the towers, since he had done so during the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. His more loquacious sidekick, Will Jimeno, played with energetic intensity by Michael Pena, is a rookie anxious to prove himself.

The towers fall before McLaughlin, Jimeno, and the several other officers in the rescue party have a chance to act. McLaughlin, Jimeno, and a third policeman find themselves trapped in a Dante’s inferno, a smoldering pile of twisted metal and concrete, occasionally erupting in yellow and white flame, each time burying the men deeper. The third man is soon killed during one of these tectonic shocks. 

Realizing that they are both bleeding internally, the rather laconic McLaughlin directs Jimeno to keep talking so they can both stay awake and alive. The men open up to each other, expressing candid thoughts about their wives, children, worries, and dreams. Prior to this point, they did not know each other well. Their conversation is reminiscent of American soldiers having frank talks with total strangers while en route to Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion. A memorable moment comes when the reticent McLaughlin, his voice and face quivering, laments that people don’t like him because he doesn’t smile much.