On September 11th Port Authority police officers John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno are sent to the WTC when the first plane crashes. As they try to evacuate people, the Towers collapse and McLoughlin and Jimeno are trapped in the debris whilst their fellow officers are killed instantly or die soon after.

I expected World Trade Center to be a rescue film as heroic policemen or more accurately Nicolas Cage goes and try to rescue people from the rubble. Not that they themselves are trapped in the rubble with most of the film taking place in the dark as the rest of the film deals in emotional turmoil of their families cross cutting with the trapped policemen in peril with salvation arriving in the form of a religious, zany and rather on the edge Marine who speaks in slogans. We are told at the end of the film that the marine later did two tours of duty in Iraq (a country which by the way had nothing to do with 9/11 but I am sure the way the character is presented in this film gleefully took vengeance on the Iraqi people!)

The films is based on a true story and not a tale I knew about as I came to this film with little knowledge of the plot. Oliver Stone is more restrained in his directing style (keep the camera moving is his motto!) and the film does present challenges for Stone.

This ranges from his left wing views that is tempered here, to being respectful to the 9/11 events and this true story of the rescue but also the technical challenge of re-enacting the disaster. Obviously they have created a CGI Twin Towers in the establishing shots of New York and then used archive footage of the aftermath of the incident and the Towers with the plot of the film although not successfully integrated.

The film conveys the confusion that occurred on that day but pacing is a problem especially when the police team are literally walking to the disaster area and of course when they are later trapped it is then just two guys talking to keep each other going which of course makes the story drag but its also devoid of tension.

A somewhat "worthy" version of the September 11th attacks, told from the point of view of a group of policemen present in the foyer when the tower collapses on top of them. I didn't much like this film as much as I thought I would; in fact, it sent me to sleep, which really is a cardinal sin when the subject matter's as important as it is here. Oliver Stone was a great director back in the '80s, but his much-needed style is in short supply here, so that any old director could have done the job.

One problem I had was with the casting of Nicolas Cage, who I just didn't think was sympathetic enough to hold the viewer's attention. Cage isn't my favourite actor and he does nothing to dispel that image here, while other, better characters like the one Jay Hernandez plays fall by the wayside and way too much time is taken up with unnecessary sub-plots about the 'families back home' – please! I could have done without this mawkish stuff that drags the storyline down.

Another problem is that the film is very long winded. It starts off great, but halfway through the story's pretty much over and there's still another hour to go – it's as this point I fell asleep. It may have drastically improved after I did, but somehow I doubt it. For my money, the Paul Greengrass thriller UNITED 93 is everything that WORLD TRADE CENTER isn't: pacy, exciting, thrilling, urgent, and utterly, utterly heartbreaking and horrifying in equal measure.

It's a normal New York morning on September 11, 2001. When a plane flies into Tower One, Sgt John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) leads a group of Port Authority cops. There are conflicting reports on Tower Two. As they prepare to go up to Tower One, Tower Two collapse around them. Will Jimeno (Michael Peña),Dominick Pezzulo (Jay Hernandez),and McLoughlin manage to escape into the elevator shaft.

It's got some compelling iconic 9/11 moments although Oliver Stone doesn't actually show the planes crashing into the buildings. He's staying mainly close to these characters. He does a straight telling. He's not doing anything too risky. It is a bit long and the tension doesn't stay high. Maybe Stone is scared to short-change anybody and that would be understandable. There are small sections of high tension but it doesn't last the whole movie.