Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

John Bacich Don't listen to the previous reviews. They're probably from Clinton supporters who still defend him for not taking Bin Ladin out when he had the chance. The movie is excellent. It spares neither officials on the right or left who dropped the ball on 9/11. And believe it, there were plenty on both sides who did so. Compare this movie to The Siege, a 1998 Denzel movie that predicted America would put Islamists in concentration camps when America got fed up with terrorist attacks. Talk about getting it wrong is an understatement. Hollywood should get the Shame award for that one.

vchimpanzee At first, I was expecting this movie to be about what happened on that terrible day. Although I have seen numerous documentaries, this was my first fictional TV-movie based on the events of 9-11. When it started several years in advance, I figured the movie would end with the day that changed America, and that we would see many of the events that led to what happened. A pilot did not seem to want to learn enough about flying, and this raised a red flag with his instructor. But then the time line advanced too quickly, and it was clear things were going to have to slow down a lot. They didn't, and the dark day came quickly. We saw a number of events in various parts of the country which related somehow to 9-11, but it took a while to figure out how they connected with each other. If one scene was true, there were people who knew how to stop the events from happening, but they didn't try hard enough. A connection was made to either September 11 or November 9, several weeks in advance.In Seattle, a female FBI agent played a role in stopping a group of people who might have been terrorists. She just happened to be the girlfriend of a man who spent most of the movie fighting in Afghanistan. I suppose the Afghanistan scenes had value, but that should probably have been a whole other movie.Admiral McKee, who had a major role in developing the Homeland Security department after the attacks, happened to have a daughter who was going to college at Berkeley, who knew a professor who was one of the many suspicious-acting people from the Middle East or nearby. Some of these people were perfectly innocent but ended up getting arrested or worse when we were unable to trust people who were 'different'.One character had a ticket on Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania. I won't say whether the character made it onto the plane, but an effective scene with this character's family showed their reaction when the plane went down. One interesting scene showed a plane with problems that led the military to believe terrorists were on that plane. The unthinkable almost happened. This was quite interesting.After 9-11, we watched as various government agencies showed they were not prepared and made attempts to change that. We saw something taking place in Afghanistan, though exactly what wasn't clear. We saw the innocent and the possibly guilty being detained. We saw this tragedy from many different angles, maybe too many for this short a movie.And--this could be a SPOILER--No happy ending to this one.

lellison Being among the first to contribute to the user comments, I feel somewhat on thin ice on this one.I noticed on the comments threads that several viewers thought the timing was wrong for this subject, and that it was a Republican billboard during an election year. All that aside, I did watch the complete movie, despite the many commercial interruptions. Flow and continuity is important to any pseudo documentary (which is how I would classify this work), documentary, or docudrama. It was difficult enough following the many different locations and mini-plots. To accurately depict the depth and scope of this topic, much more time is needed, and the many commercial breaks would have to be eliminated, which obviously won't happen on a network movie. All of the historical events visited, although based in fact, were given only a token presentation, and were intertwined with fictional characters and plots.It is entirely possible that the writers of this movie were attempting to accurately show the progression of the Middle East terrorism threat from the early 90's through post 9/11. Unfortunately, the span of this topic just can't be fit into the traditional movie length. Think about doing justice to War And Peace or The Godfather in 90 minutes.The single redeeming part of this movie might be a rather corny and feeble attempt at showing all of us how the Department of Homeland Security was formed, it's makeup, and it's function. However, one would do better to pick up a copy of last week's Newsweek for a more fulfilling explanation.Reflecting back on this movie, I feel like I watched 7 years of history on a fast-forward videotape. We all know the historical facts quite well, and most of this was a review of the high and low points, spiced up (or down) with soap opera style emotional tidbits.Yes, if the purpose of this presentation is strictly entertainment, the timing is wrong (and always will be). If enlightenment is the target, it missed the mark and might stand accused of being sloppy historical revisionism. Politically, it did lean rather heavily toward the right. The historical time line is full of holes, which were plugged with emotional sugar lumps. Technically fairly well written, acted, and directed. I was comfortable with this movie right after watching it, but having written the preceding, I now am not very pleased with it. There's a bit too much of an Oliver Stone undercurrent. Take it with a grain of salt, and don't expect too much.

dglink A confusing, episodic TV movie that was either cut down from a lengthy mini-series or written by a committee that never met. Is it based on fact? or purely fiction? or somewhere in between? Perhaps all or none of the above; it is never clear. The footage that was left on the cutting room floor may have fleshed out the subplots and characters and clarified just what was going on. Maybe the DVD will be complete, although I doubt that even intact this film would be worthwhile. The acting by has-beens and never-weres is passable at best, while the writing is not. Some of the dialog sounds like political posturing, and the "climax" would make Frank Capra cringe. After 9/11, one commentator asked how long it would be before a film would try to capitalize on the events. Now we have the answer.