I thought about starting this review with an account of the tragedy of September 11^th 2001. But then I thought, the chances are, if you’re reading this, you will know all too well of the events that took 2792 lives and changed the Manhattan skyline forever. Therefore, I don’t need to tell you what happened that day.

Similarly, director Oliver Stone seems to have used this tactic in his film ‘World Trade Center’.

For the first few minutes of the film we are introduced to the main characters as, like their fellow New Yorkers, they make there way to work, just normal commuters going about their every day lives.  

The film tells the inspiring true story of John McLoughlin and William J. Jimeno, two Port Authority Police Officers who, after going in to help, were buried in rubble when the first of the towers collapsed. The action moves between them and their families, desperate for any news of their loved ones.

Nicholas Cage and Michael Pena are brilliant as McLoughlin and Jimeno but every single cast member plays their role with sincerity and sympathy for the characters they are portraying. To prepare for his role, Cage spent time in a sensory deprivation tank in order to get some idea of how his character must have felt whilst he was trapped.

I know there have been debates over whether it was too soon to make this film, but is there ever a right time to make a motion picture about such a tragic event? When would it be acceptable? Ten, twenty, thirty years down the line? In this day and age of suicide bombings and terror attacks on our world, this film represents a pinnacle of hope in the darkness of terror.

I found the film to have been made in a sensitive, thoughtful way that didn't ask for the sympathy of the world and didn't over dramatise the event either.

World Trade Center is a beautiful film that will surely inspire every person who sees it. Anyone who has visited Manhattan, before or since the tragic events, will find something in it that is personal to them, whether it be a landmark they have visited or a photo they have taken there.

The thing that most got to me when I visited Ground Zero a few years ago and when I watched the film, is that the people who died weren’t soldiers fighting a war, they were normal people going about their daily lives. They were ordinary citizens who walked into work and never left. They were people like you and me. And that’s what Oliver Stone has managed to convey with his direction.

The success of a film is often rated on its box office takings or how many awards it picks up. But for this film, I think its success should be rated on the emotive effect it has on its audience. The fact that I had goosebumps for the first ten minutes and cried for the last ten is testimony to the writing, direction and performance of everyone involved in the telling of the shocking events of that day.

The fact that Nicholas Cage gave the money he earned to charity shows that this film was not made for money, but to show that, even in its darkest hour, Americans failed to give up hope.