9/11 (2017)

[StevePulaski]

9/11 (2017)
Directed by: Martin Guigui

Charlie Sheen and Gina Gershon in 9/11.

Rating: ★★

While unfairly victim to the hyperbolic overreaction of people deeming this as the most offensive movie ever (likely without even seeing it), 9/11 doesn't give viewers much to praise. It's a generic potboiler set against the backdrop of one of America's greatest tragedies, released on the weekend of its sixteenth anniversary. It begs you to feel something, but outside of some solid moments, and a great Luis Guzmán performance that will go down as one of the veteran "that guy" actor's most memorable, it's simply too average and too spotty to merit a recommendation.

Based on Patrick Carson's acclaimed play "Elevator," which premiered in Tucson, Arizona six years ago, the film revolves around five different individuals that find themselves trapped in an elevator in the World Trade Center's North Tower following the impact of the first plane. The five individuals are billionaire Jeffrey Cage (Charlie Sheen) and his wife Eve (Gina Gershon), both of whom coming to terms on their divorce papers, Eddie (Luis Guzmán), a genial maintenance worker, Michael (Wood Harris), a bicycle messenger, and Tina (Olga Fonda), a young Russian woman intent on moving on from her relationship with a married man.

The group of office misfits are aided only by the disembodied voice of Metzie (Whoopi Goldberg), an elevator dispatcher who struggles to maintain contact through the scratchy intercom. All of Metzie's security cameras in all thirty-two of the Trade Center's elevators go offline upon the plane hitting the tower, and most of the technicians have been evacuated. Eddie is the only one inside the narrow confines that has the slightest idea of how elevators work, but at the same time, cannot open the large metal doors as tensions flare and, eventually, the South Tower is also hit.

With the film's title being 9/11 - not "Elevator," like it probably should've been - controversy has amassed regarding the film's allegedly exploitative tone and offensive subject matter since it essentially makes the tragic events of the September day out to be one of disaster movie/one-setting convention. The film disregards themes of global politics and terrorism, not simply by downplaying them, but by giving the characters perspective that never extends past the present. "How do you accidentally fly a plane into one of the largest buildings in New York?," Sheen's Cage asks at one point during the film, a logical question in the context of the moment in which the film takes place.

With the attack's reverberations being decidedly minimized, that should mean that character and ambience are the two things that flourish in 9/11. The problem is that, like The Night Chronicles: Devil, another film set in an elevator, director/co-writer Martin Guigui (working with Steven Golebiowski) don't commit to keeping us trapped in the elevator like the five characters. Just like Shyamalan's film, we must ping-pong back and forth to see the outside events unfold, televisions showing us images of the burning buildings that are already seared into most of our retinas. We don't see much of Metzie's perspective outside of a few shots intercut with all the havoc unfolding (undoubtedly because Goldberg had to get back to The View), but we certainly get shots of the five characters' families, including the couple's son and Eddie's family, as well.

9/11 would've worked a lot better if we never once cut to the outside of the four walls that encase the main cast. Like the characters, we would've been sealed off from all the mayhem, trapped and left with our own wits even as the room began to fill with smoke. When Guigui and Golebiowski cut to outside out of the elevator for about the fifth time right when Michael asks Eve why she's divorcing Jeffrey after her monologue of praise noting his accomplishments, it feels all too cheap and convenient - not revealing like it should.

The performances are the saving grace here. Outside of a seriously miscast Charlie Sheen, in his first film since Machete Kills in 2013 and in his first theatrical starring role since A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III in 2011, the cast handles the challenges of confinement and claustrophobia mostly well. Gershon has a few emotional moments that highlight her range as an actress, but Guzmán steals every scene he's allowed to command simply by being his charismatic, thick-tongued self. Most of Guzmán's roles, such as in Waiting... and recent Adam Sandler affairs, he's given a role of the thankless side-character. At least here, he's engaging and his character both likable and fleshed out.

9/11 is a basic potboiler of a film, visually ugly and uncharacteristic of anything besides highlighting a lot of recognizable actors giving above-average performances. It's not as emotionally manipulative as it could be, thankfully, but by ignoring that cop-out, the film doesn't influence itself with anything resembling humanism outside of cliches. The tragic events of the respective day will hopefully never be forgotten; the film might be as soon as it finishes what is destined to be a painfully short theatrical run.

NOTE: Listen to my discussion of 9/11 on my radio show "Sleepless with Steve:"

Starring: Charlie Sheen, Gina Gershon, Luis Guzmán, Wood Harris, Olga Fonda, and Whoopi Goldberg. Directed by: Michael Guigui.