Stone goes for the heart

Forgoing indictment, director salutes two heroes in 'Center'

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 9, 2006 at midnight

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It's impossible to watch Oliver Stone's World Trade Center without being moved.

Stone defies those who think of him only as a provocateur in making a compact and emotionally charged story that illuminates a Sept. 11 tale few of us know - and he does it with a respect bordering on reverence.

World Trade Center re-creates the rescue of two Port Authority policemen who were trapped in the rubble of a collapsed concourse between Towers 1 and 2. Precious little plot augments Stone's spare tale, aside from scenes that show us how the families of John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno tried to cope with the unimaginable.

Stone doesn't deal with the men who flew planes into the World Trade Center, nor does he indulge in post-Sept. 11 politics. No theories. No conspiracies. No indictments.

Instead, he creates his most iconic work yet, an ode to ordinary people who showed extraordinary bravery on a day none of us will forget.

Amazingly, Stone - a director who could probably find traces of evil in a kindergarten class - focuses on the good. He accepts the workaday values of his heroes and bathes them in an appreciative glow.

McLoughlin and Jimeno survived because of family and faith. McLoughlin, a senior officer played by Nicolas Cage, thought he'd be letting his family down if he died. A vision of Jesus kept Jimeno going; the exceptional Michael Pena plays Jimeno, a cop who wanted to live to see his unborn child.

Simple, yes, but don't think Stone avoids pyrotechnics. He uses computer-generated images and sound to make us feel what these men felt when the towers tumbled. They didn't have a clue what had happened. They were crushed and buried alive; they tried to talk each other through a nightmare.

Meanwhile, their wives (Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal) did their best to cope, taking care of kids and attempting to gather news about husbands they feared might not be coming home.

After almost 24 hours, McLoughlin and Jimeno were found by a former Marine, a religious man who traveled from Connecticut to New York City on his own. Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon) was on a mission. In the movie, he comes off as a near-spectral figure, an embodiment of selfless dedication.

For all its obvious virtues, World Trade Center doesn't quite rise to the level the material demands. The movie can lag, and it's not entirely successful in conquering a formidable challenge. Large segments involve two men trapped in the dark and fighting to remain conscious. McLoughlin and Jimeno shouted through the otherworldly creaks and groans of collapsing wreckage. They couldn't see each other.

I'm also not sure that Stone didn't make a mistake by casting someone as recognizable as Cage. At times, McLoughlin is hardly visible, but we still know it's Cage. That, along with some self-conscious filmmaking, makes it difficult to forget we're watching a movie.

Although World Trade Center doesn't fuel anyone's political agenda, it lends itself to the kind of romanticized view of ordinary men that found its way into Platoon. Stone can't conceal his admiration for these salt-of-the-earth cops.

This time, though, I found myself asking, "Why not?" Why not make a movie that trumpets the courage of virtuous men, even if it took Sept. 11 to inspire it?

World Trade Center will inevitably be compared with United 93, another (and, I think, superior) account of the events of Sept. 11. In that movie, director Paul Greengrass took an unadorned documentary approach to what happened on (and off) Flight 93.

In so doing, Greengrass captured the raw confusion and horror of a day when everything seemed to change and we weren't sure how the world would look on Sept. 12.

Stone's film comes closer to TV-movie material - only magnified by prodigious directorial skill, a willingness to allow emotions to speak loudly and Stone's obvious admiration for the movie's men and women.

It's odd - and ultimately commendable - that a director who has made some of the most divisive films in cinema history has chosen to concentrate on a moment of unparalleled unity. The attacks and their aftermath were a fleeting time when we were neither liberals nor conservatives, when we didn't regard ourselves as residents of red states or blue states but as Americans who felt as if we shared a common, if uncertain, fate.

Maybe that's the ground zero we very much need to remember.

denersteinb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5425

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