 'World Trade Center'
(Nicolas Cage, Maria Bello, Jude Ciccolella, Patti D'Arbanville, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Frank Whaley, et al / PG-13 / 92 mins / Universal)
Overview: This docudrama tells the story of Port Authority policemen John McLoughlin (Nic Cage) and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena), who were trapped in the rubble of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, after they went in to help people escape.
Verdict: OK, let's get this straight from the start - this is not the 9/11 story most people would expect from Oliver Stone. The movie's visual grandeur, sweeping emotion and heightened, sometimes overwrought, drama taps into the main emotional vein of that day for sure, but it's the somber, focused and straightforward manner in which it does it that detracts from the usual Stone vision. Not that that is a bad thing for this movie is lovely and touching on so many levels, it's just that sometimes it feels like the whole thing happened in a vacuum. It's stripped down to the story of these two men so we don't have to relive the entire tragedy - visually - once more. This is a big movie, in all senses of the word.
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