United 93

Jean and Donald Peterson comfort one another aboard United Airlines Flight 93.

Herald rating: * * * * *

It's doubtful any American director could have made the masterly job of recreating what happened on the doomed September 11 flight UA93 that the reigning master of the docudrama has done here.

Greengrass, the English director of Bloody Sunday (the 1972 massacre by British troops of unarmed protesters in Derry) and Omagh (the 1998 IRA bombing of that Northern Ireland market town) is not driven here by the righteous rage that might have dripped from every frame had it been controlled by an American. He maintains an almost clinical detachment - and the film is better for it.

Yet, concentrating on the events on board the one hijacked flight that did not reach its target, he creates an almost palpable sense of the dread and chaos both on the ground and in the air.

Greengrass' script is a powerful blend of supposition and scrupulous journalistic precision. Time and again we are struck with the knowledge that what is shown on screen has been reconstructed from the phone calls made from the aircraft. And when the dialogue is speculative it seems, eerily, more authentic than the certainties.

The film opens quietly as the hijackers rise, bathe, shave and pray, and the tension builds slowly - not until the 50th minute does the first plane hit the World Trade Centre.

This meticulous control of pace - the film unfolds in real time - ensures that our knowledge of what is to come offers no relief. The tension builds inexorably, almost unbearably, and Greengrass ratchets it up, cutting at a steadily faster pace until he reaches the chaotic maelstrom of a finale.

Shot mostly in medium close-up and close-up with a handheld-camera, the film keeps us constantly on edge, straining to see what's happening just outside the frame. We don't see the pilots die, for example, but, through the eyes of one of the cabin crew we glimpse their bodies being hauled into the galley. We then realise that she now knows she is on a suicide flight - and it turns our innards to ice. The approach makes the film as much a historical document as a knuckle-whitening drama and it is remarkably free of sensationalism and sentimentalism.

The main picture that emerges is of the alarming disconnection between the organisations meant to deal with such a crisis. Military commanders were not notified that UA93 had been hijacked until 18 minutes after it crashed.

What remains is the image of the world's most powerful nation powerless in the face of crazed determination. What that means for the future is almost as chilling as what happened on that day.

Cast: J. Johnson, Polly Adams, Cheyenne Jackson, Opal Alladin, Starla Benford, Trish Gates, Nancy McDoniel, David Alan Basche
Director: Paul Greengrass
Running time: 111 mins
Rating: M, contains violence and offensive language
Screening: Rialto, from August 17
Verdict: Recreation by top British docudrama director Greengrass of the doomed September 11 flight is unsensational, knuckle-whitening and ringingly authentic.