Once bitten, twice shy, Stone - no stranger to controversy or
conspiracy - has not made a JFK-style expose of the 9-11 Commission. At first
blush, grassy knollers may be disappointed, as Stone seems to steer clear of
speculation about what "really" happened September 11th.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/poliwood/poliwoodmain.php
Aug. 11, 2006
Stones Stupendous Masterpiece
Raises Disturbing Questions
By Ed Rampell
Oliver Stones World Trade Center is among the greatest disaster movies ever
shot, although its much more than a special effects spectacle. This colossal
masterpiece returns the director of Kennedy assassination/ Vietnam/Central
America classics to Hollywoods front ranks and the frontlines of films about
touchy subjects that raise troubling questions, with what appears to be a
knowing nod to 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Based on actual accounts, WTC opens with just another day, as unsuspecting
commuters rise and head towards Manhattan. Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena portray
Sergeant John McLoughlin and rookie Will Jimeno (based on real Port Authority
Police Department officers). Suddenly, a jets shadow zooms across a high rise;
booms are heard. A veteran of 1993s WTC bombing, McLoughlin leads a PADP
detachment from midtowns Bus Terminal to downtowns disaster site.En route,
a second plane strikes the South Tower. The sarge mutters that after the blind
sheiks assault, authorities became "prepared for everything, but not this, not
for something this size. Theres no plan" for aerial surprise attacks. Arriving
at the WTC, amidst mass carnage and confusion, the policemen see someone falling
from the towering inferno. Nevertheless, the men-in-blue press on to the
concourse, where McLoughlin asks for volunteers to rescue people stranded above.
"I got it, sarge," says the rookie. As Jimeno, McLoughlin and others enter
hells gates, viewers who know what will literally befall the first responders
unaware of the impending apocalypse cant help but be moved. At the screening I
attended, two women brought tissue boxes and offered Kleenexes to audience
members - it was here this Native New Yorker needed eye wipe number one.
Its the first of many Kleenex moments: as the Twin Towers collapse, Jimeno
and McLoughlin are trapped by rubble. Pinned down, they fight for their lives,
and Stone opens up the action to their flashbacks and those left behind. Like
many disaster flicks, personal stories unfold. Coping with the unraveling
Armageddon, the cops families are brave in their own ways.
At a March 18 L.A. demo protesting the Iraq invasions third anniversary, I
asked Maria Bello if she was in any upcoming socially conscious films. She
replied, "I dont ever plan to do a film with a message. I just happen to do
films that move me, and if they happen to have a message for someone, thats
fantastic as well. Im currently in Oliver Stones new film about 9/11." As
McLoughlin and Jimenos wives, Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaals performances are
eloquent rebukes to Squeaky Fromme-like "pundits" who mock 9/11 widows.
But WTC is no tearjerker - or gung-ho flag waver. This homage to ordinary
peoples extraordinary courage could have ended with Bushs bullhorn speech atop
Ground Zeros remains. But Stone (who, unlike Bush, volunteered for Vietnam)
knows that with turmoil in Afghanistan, Iraq and much of the Middle East, the
presidential bravado rings hollow today. Instead, the wise director of the 1980s
Vietnam and Central America dramas Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July and
Salvador ends WTC on a note of hope and solidarity, as Cage says:
"9/11 showed us what humans are capable of, the evil, yeah sure, but it also
brought out a goodness we forgot could exist. People taking care of each other,
for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. Its important for us to
talk about that good, to remember, because I saw a lot of it that
day."In Stones oeuvre, WTC may be closest to his other Lower Manhattan
movie, 1987s Wall Street, starring Charlie Sheen, who goes-for-broker when
bullish Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) pronounces: "Greed is good." Charlie
plays the son of blue collar worker Martin Sheen (his offscreen father and
activist). Stone, the son of a Wall Streeter, extols the proletariats virtues
in Wall Street and WTC, where plebians, not patricians, are working class
heroes.
9/11 conspiracy theorists would naturally cast the first Stone to direct a
September 11th feature. After all, he helmed 1991s JFK, wherein Stone leaves no
stone unturned in debunking the Warren Commission/lone gunman/"magic bullet"
Kennedy assassination narrative.
Similarly, todays cabal-minded doubt the official version of September 11th
in documentaries such as Michael Moores Fahrenheit 9/11, 911 in Plane Site and
Confronting the Evidence. Among critics bone-chilling allegations is that the
Pentagons 16 foot hole reportedly caused by Flight 77 is too small
