United 93

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have been dramatized in TV movies, including the insipid "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis" (2003), starring Timothy Bottoms as President Bush, and "The Flight That Fought Back" (2005), an effective docudrama about the only hijacked plane that didn't reach its destination.

Writer-director Paul Greengrass' "United 93," which tells essentially the same story as the docudrama, is designed for bigger screens and multiplex audiences. In many ways it's a superb accomplishment, far more engrossing and stylish than any of its predecessors. Greengrass seems almost allergic to the kinds of clichés and distracting cameo roles that clutter most plane-in-peril melodramas.

Using unknown actors and a nervous, constantly moving camera, he makes the experience so immediate that you find yourself holding on to turning-point moments that might have led to a different, happier outcome. As the passengers and flight crew board the doomed plane, you search for evidence that will reveal what they're up against. It's there, sometimes hidden, sometimes obvious, but they end up missing it, over and over.

Greengrass directed the documentary-like "Bloody Sunday" (2002), based on his research into the 1972 Irish civil-rights uprising, and he once more brings conviction and narrative integrity to a horrifying true story. Greengrass also directed "The Bourne Supremacy" (2004), a sequel so slickly done that some fans of "The Bourne Indentity" prefer it to the original.

More than any previous dramatization of the subject, "United 93" focuses on the air-traffic control center where the enormity of the attacks slowly became evident. The incredulous reaction of flight experts, as they realize that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were not hit by accident, is brilliantly handled.

Greengrass is especially good at capturing the feeling of that day. If you watched on television that morning, as the towers fell, and you wondered how four planes could simultaneously have been hijacked with such apparent ease, you may feel shocked all over again as you watch the movie.

But "United 93" does leave us wanting more. Although it's quick to demonstrate that homicidal religious fundamentalism is neither religious nor fundamental, it's considerably less enlightening on the subject than, say, "Syriana" or "Paradise Now." There is much to say about the lack of preparedness, on many levels, for what was, after all, a second terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. But the script steers clear of such controversial matters.

As Greengrass shifts his emphasis from the air-traffic control center and into the plane, where the passengers gradually realize they're being sacrificed as part of an organized attack, the movie threatens to become a more conventional disaster epic, complete with tearful farewells and acts of heroism.

While much of this is documented, via cell-phone conversations with the passengers and loved ones, it feels a little manipulative — perhaps because we barely know any of these people. Still, if you can get through the final half hour without tearing up, you must be made of granite.

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