No big stars, no wonderful scenery, no memorable lines. Only uncracked jargons, boring conversations and chaotic scenes.
Yet, there's a reason why United 93 has been critically acclaimed.

To be honest this movie is really not appealing at first. It's not focused on the happenings on the plane, but also talks about different control towers, the just promoted-boss, and the military office. And then there're tonnes of jargons. Knots, maintain flight level 350, contact tower at 120.38 and so on. And it's not just one person who says these but everyone in your television box. The Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound at your home is so gonna give you a headache 15 minutes after the movie started, especially when you hate numbers and you have no interest in the aviation industry whatsoever. Descend to flight level 180, what, I don't give a damn, just show me some actions. Come on, terrorists on board, just do something, now! But before you get to see what you want, you very likely have already switched off the tv.

And then there're no famous faces. The actors and actresses look like any regular person you see on the street any other day. Worse, they have no names. So after watching the movie you don't remember any character. They're just a bunch of passengers. Okay maybe they're like those who leave memorable, groundbreaking lines and go by the name 'anonymous'. Hmmm let's see, 'I hardly ever finish a magazine', 'I'm gonna celebrate my anniversary soon', 'would you like some drink?', 'No, thank you'. Right, if the script is ever published as a book I'm sure the buyers are those with serious sleeping problems.

The essence actually lies at the very end of the movie. Not just the last 15 minutes in which the passengers fight for control, but also the ending credit. These days producers try to get people to keep their asses on the cinema seat till the very very end and read the credits so they put extra ending (and more often a twist to the plot) after the credits. Well, there are better ways to make this happen. Steven Spielberg had this great idea for 'The Terminal'. The name of the cast and crew appeared in the credit as if they're signing their autographs instead of the plain, typefaced letters. Very smart idea.

As for United 93, it's just plain credit. Nothing special. But if you actually read it, you can see all the characters that the actors and actresses portrayed, in other words the flight crew, passengers, hijackers and so on, are all named. Fully named. Fully credited. On the plane they're just 14D or 9F. Sitting next to you is a random stranger that's gonna spend the next 5 and a half hours, out of your entire life, with you, so it's absolutely normal that you don't know his/her name and thus almost no names are revealed. But behine the scenes they are not just anyone but they have their own identities. Let's face it, in real life we're just a bunch of numbers and alphabets. We're just 4D (25) or 08713654 or 1006. These meaningless arrangement and combinations simply standardize everyone and bury one's individuality. So the director decided to ask the victims' families for more information about the victims and attempted to portrayed them as truthfully as possible. And that's a respect.

As the credit continues to roll up you see character names of air traffic controllers. Most of them portrayed by 'himself'. Who can read those jargons so fluently and easily? Actual ATCs. They are not the world's best actors (and actresses as well for the military staff), but they show the chaos on that day. Their confusion, frustration and fear of losing control when their job is to keep everything strictly under control. The stress of handling a possible hijacked plane and how awful it is to scream out 'I can't take another plane!'. All the green lines and numbers and letters on the monitor that freak you out when watching, are exactly what scared them at the moment of that day. It's just pure chaos.

What United 93 tells is a story of hijacking, being united and fight for control, but what it tries to show subtly is a dedication to the victims and those who were involved in the incident. By truthful portait and a little more care and respect.

"September 11, 2001. Four planes were hijacked. Three of them reached their target. This is the story of the fourth."

"At night, the airport emerged as a home of nomadic spirits, types who could not commit to any one country, who shied from tradition and were suspicious of settled community, and who were therefore nowhere more comfortable than in the intermediate zones of the modern world, landscapes gashed by kerosene storage tanks, business parks and airport hotels."

"We forget everything: the books we read, the temples of Japan, the tombs of Luxor, the airline queues, our own foolishness. And so we gradually return to identifying happiness with elsewhere: twin rooms overlooking a harbor, a hilltop church boasting the remains of the Sicilian martyr St Agatha, a palm-fringed bungalow with complimentary evening buffet service. We recover an appetite for packing, hoping and screaming. We will need to go back and learn the important lessons of the airport all over again soon."

- Alain de Botton

Gonna step out of the box and fucking prove them wrong
That's the spirit

For myself, and for those who believe