Reel Advice: The 9/11 Commission Report

AaronDec 20th, 2008 - 11:58:40

This film was rubbish. As an avid reader of the 11 September Report, I was shocked with the intensely fictional elements of this film and that not one frame of the picture depicted notables like Mohamed Atta or any of the 19 Saudi, Egyptian, and Kuwaiti nationals that allegedly flew the four ill-fated aeroplanes that day. I was glad to at least see Mr. Moussaoui but his appearance in the film was the only tie between this disappointing exploration of the United States' so called 'investigation' and 9/11. All of this was pre-Bush Bojinka plot information. The film should have been called 'Bojinka.'

On a technical note, I was confused as to whether the film-makers were going for a hard-edged documentary look or they were simply without a steadycam. All of the officials in the film were having meetings in a car or a bathroom, which does imply that the attacks were not to be stopped by a Western intelligence network that is, for all purposes, without an office.

I had watched the three-minute featurette before viewing the picture and I recall the director saying something along the lines of 'I read the report, I was struck by the history of the conflict between the United States and Islamic fundamentalists, so I decided to include no visual reference to that struggle and stay as unwaveringly supportive of the report as possible.' It was at this point when I was thinking 'Boy, I'm in for a ride.' And it was a slow, shaky, ride with no relevant facts and an inappropriate sex scene. What page of the report was that on?

The only similarity between the report and this film is the title. After wasting much of my life pouring over the 571 page whitewash that was the 9/11 Commission Report, I was uniquely disappointed to waste another hour and a half on completely unrelated material.

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