Tonight we caught the late showing of United 93, the story of the only plane not to hit its intended target on September 11, 2001.

The story follows that fateful morning from a number of different angles: the people on the ground, in the towers, the terrorists and passengers and crew aboard United Flight 93. If you are one of the few people on the earth that haven’t seen images of planes hitting the World Trade Center, it has those horrifying images too. We never do get to know any of the people that well in the film, which might be a dig for some people.

The last 30 minutes of the movie twisted my gut. This movie made me extremely uncomfortable and uneasy. We all know how this flight ended. There were heroes on that plane and if there is some way in the afterlife I’d sure like to shake some hands of brave passengers aboard that plane that took matters into their own hands.

Meanwhile, Mission Impossible 3 with Tom Cruise was hogging several theaters while there were only a dozen or so people watching United 93 along with us. Fiction just doesn’t compare to non-fiction.

Note: there are reports out there that dispute the events depicted in the final 10 minutes so it’s possible that the last ten minutes or so of United 93 are in fact fiction, but the rest of the movie feels very authentic to me. I’m sure like any movie some literary license was taken in some parts.

The theater was eerily silent. I remember reading somebody else say the same thing about the theater they were in for the same film. This is one of the most disturbing films I’ve seen in a long, long time. Harrowing. Some might not be ready to see a movie like this and honestly I wasn’t sure I was ready either. Chilling. Never forget those who lost their lives on 9/11. Grade: A.

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