Wes Vernon
May 1, 2006
United 93--what a wartime movie should be
By Wes Vernon

"I love you! I love you more than anything!"

Those terrified last words into a cell-phone to a loved one from a woman passenger on the doomed United Flight 93 the morning of September 11 was a pivotal moment. In the darkness of the theatre, that's when I "lost it."

If asked to pinpoint the highlight of the movie "United 93," one struggles with where to begin. The chilling scene of a highjacker sitting in the Newark airport waiting area among the Americans he was about to kill, the nervousness mixed with seemingly smooth intellect on the part of the bespectacled lead hijacker (who could pass for a polite kid on his way to another semester at college), the flight attendant tearfully pleading for her life as the hijackers are about to slit her throat, and of course — the total heroism and courage of the passengers who fought back and tried to take control of the plane, Todd Beamer's famous barely whispered "Let's roll."

All of these and more make for a powerful production. Writer-director Paul Greengrass put every last ounce of his great talent into providing this witness to recent history with just the right blend of realism (as befits a true story of terror of a magnitude previously beyond most imaginations) without sacrificing taste (very little blood is shown). Greengrass had the wisdom to understand that Hollywood's usual penchant for overdramatizing was neither necessary nor wise. The real-life story in and of itself has given Americans nightmares.

And the film accomplishes something else that has long been missing or very rarely produced by Hollywood — a film that realistically focuses on the pure evil of America's enemies.

This moviegoer left the theatre muttering, "The bastards!" It is reasonable to suspect others had the same reaction.

The last time I saw that type of "us against them" war movie was in World War II. In those days, motion pictures showed the heroism of our military and the oppression of people living in occupied Europe and Asia. We saw all the raw ugliness of our enemies, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Who can forget the actors Helmut Dantine and Martin Kosleck (among others) who brought the evil Nazi persona into our theatres everywhere?

That kind of moviemaking is essential when we are at war. Call it wartime propaganda if you will. But without the kind of "entertainment" that helps a nation focus its unified attention on what we are fighting for and against, the effort can break down. Our enemies are watching and hoping that our open society will soften our resolve in the face of their relentless attempt to bring down the curtain on our America as we have known it.

Unfortunately, the great wartime moviemaking of World War II has not been subsequently replicated on any large scale. Why not? Perhaps it is because the Nazis were the last of America's enemies that Hollywood deemed worthy of opposition.

Since Hollywood's last "good war" ended in 1945, we have had more than a half century of goose-stepping Nazis across the screens as if that war had never ended.

During most of that time, the Soviet Union threatened world domination through brutality, infiltration, espionage, fomenting anti-freedom revolutions, and small wars here and there.

Yet, as Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley said in his 1998 book Hollywood Party, "(N)ot a single Hollywood film has ever shown Communists committing atrocities. No Hollywood film has dealt with the Ukraine famine, the Moscow [purge] trials, or the Zhdanov purges [that claimed thousands]. No Hollywood film has shown the Hungarians rising up against their Soviet oppressors. Outside of Eleni, there is nothing about Communism in Europe. The only Hollywood film evidence of the Czechs rising in revolt against the Soviets is a short sequence in The Unbearable Essence. The crackdown of a Soviet-backed military junta in Poland on the Solidarity movement yielded one film, Kill a Priest starring Ed Harris, which failed to detail the politics involved."

Billingsley goes on to say, "The legacy of Hollywood Stalinism explains the dearth of movies about Communism." That is a subject with which we have dealt in the past and probably will in the future.

The point here and now is that Hollywood's "Blame America First" culture in the Cold War has spilled over into the War on Terror, where a film like United 93 is considered the exception.

Much of Hollywood's apparent disdain for America comes through loud and clear in last year's despicable film Flight Plan. In this outrageous and irresponsible production, a Federal air marshal, an airline flight attendant, and American passengers are the villains, while four Muslim Arabs on the plane — while first suspected of being terrorists — turn out to be the good guys.

It is hard to imagine a more direct way to dishonor the low-paid flight attendants who gave their lives on 9/11 and had their throats slit. Portraying the passengers in Flight Plan as uncaring, lazy, and arrogant is an outright smear of the innocent and heroic passengers of that day when America was attacked.

Alas, based on the decades-long record, there is reason to fear that Flight Plan and Michael Moore's vile Farenheit-9/11 are closer to the real Hollywood than United 93. I hope not.

David Beamer (father of Todd "Let's Roll" Beamer) writes in the April 27 Wall Street Journal that Paul Greengrass and Universal "set about the task of telling this story with a genuine intent to get it right — the actions of those on board and honor their memory. Their extensive research included reaching out to all the families who lost loved ones on United Flight 93 as the first casualties of this war. Paul and his team got it right."

Mr. Beamer cites United 93 as a reminder of "the nature of the enemy we face. An enemy who will stop at nothing to achieve world domination and force a life devoid of freedom upon all. "As he succinctly puts it, the film shows an enemy that "does not seek our resources, our land, or our materials, but rather to alter our very way of life." And this: "Their methods are inhumane and their targets are the innocent and unsuspecting."

This war is up close and personal. United 93 shows a side of Hollywood that can be a force for good — a Hollywood that can unite us at a time when we Americans need each other more than ever before.

© Wes Vernon

 

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)

 

Alan Keyes
Why de facto government (tyranny) is replacing the Constitution (Apr. 2015)

Stephen Stone
Will Obama be impeached now that Republicans control both houses of Congress? (Nov. 2014)

Bryan Fischer
The shallowness of Donald Trump on abortion

Cliff Kincaid
The real one percent strikes again

Robert Meyer
Wisconsin's Supreme Court election is about judicial philosophy

Bryan Fischer
Losing America one cowardly governor at a time

Jerry Newcombe
The answer to Muslim violence: Jesus

Marsha West
Evangelicals divided, a movement fractured Part 1

Michael Bresciani
Trump takes but gives nothing back to America -- three clear examples

Judie Brown
Planned Parenthood is the classic bully!

Ellis Washington
Obama and ISIS, O'Reilly and Da Capo

Michael Gaynor
Megyn Kelly ignores key facts to champion faux victim Michelle Fields' bogus criminal battery charge

A.J. Castellitto
Theocracy rising

Alan Keyes
Can the people regain the power to elect the president?
  More columns

Cartoons


Michael Ramirez
More cartoons

RSS feeds

News:
Columns:

Columnists

Matt C. Abbott
Chris Adamo
Russ J. Alan
Bonnie Alba
Jamie Freeze Baird
Chuck Baldwin
Kevin J. Banet
J. Matt Barber
. . .
[See more]

Sister sites