First car-crash television, now plane-crash movies. This made-for-TV reconstruction of the passenger fight-back on the eponymous United Airlines flight joins the throng of 9/11 inspired terror-tainment. September 11, it seems, is the ultimate disaster-movie scenario, and the transfixing power of observing people facing death in aeroplanes says much about the psychological allure of catastrophe.
Although reasonably competent, this re-staging is so limited in scope that it’s difficult to see who’s learning anything from it, other than the studios and networks who are realising there’s money in 9/11, after all. Schmaltz and patriotism are in full effect, and Americanisms such as portraying these desperate victims as laying down their lives so that the White House should not be smashed to bits abound.