I saw it tonight, and the verdict is that aside from a handful of really horrible directorial missteps, it's an excellent and powerful film. The terrorism footage, before and during, is harrowing, and it really captured the few-days-after-9/11-in-New-York feeling perfectly. The third act of the film, especially, is exemplary. And no, there's nothing objectionable in it politically, except for a montage of reactions from around the world to the attacks (where were the cheering Palestinians?)
Things I didn't like: a ludicrous scene where Jesus appears to the two trapped cops, and another in which Nicholas Cage and Maria Bello have a pretend-conversation while he's trapped. There's also horrible musical choices throughout (especially that awful "female wail" motif that I was hoping had died with "Kingdom of Heaven.") That, and nearly every main actor's New York accent appears and disappears virtually at will (Maggie Gyllenhaal especially).
By the way, the planned Q&A with Oliver Stone never materialized, but Maria Bello was at the screening, as was the real-life cop played by Cage in the movie.
Posted by Stephen Silver at July 28, 2006 02:59 AM