United 93 (film)

United 93 is a 2006 British drama film that depicts a real time account of the events on United Airlines Flight 93, one of the planes hijacked during the September 11 attacks that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania when passengers foiled the terrorist plot.
 * Directed and written by Paul Greengrass.

September 11, 2001. Four planes were hijacked. Three of them reached their target. This is the story of the fourth. (taglines)

Todd Beamer

 * Come on, guys. What are we waiting for? Let's roll. Come on, let's go already. Let's go.

Mark Bingham

 * I'm calling from the air-phone. You believe me, don't you mom?

Sandra Bradshaw

 * I promise you, if I get out of this, I'm quitting tomorrow. I'll quit tomorrow. I promise, I'll quit tomorrow.

Tom Burnett

 * Hey, this is a suicide mission. We have to do something. They are not going to land this plane; they are not going to take us back to the airport.

Honor Elizabeth Wainio

 * Hi, Mom, it's me. I'm on the plane that's been hijacked. I'm just calling to tell you that I love you, and goodbye. This really kind woman handed me the phone and she said to call you.

Richard Guadagno

 * [as the passengers batter the cockpit door with the serving cart] If we don't get in there, we'll all die!

Louis Nacke

 * [after he snatches the bomb] I got it! I got it! I got it! It's a fake! It's a fake! The bomb's a fake! It's a fake!

Ziad Jarrah

 * Open the door. Open the door and nobody will be hurt.
 * Lord to you I have submitted myself, given you my faith. On you I depend.
 * We must go lower.
 * [as he puts the plane into a steep dive] Allahu Akbar!

Saeed Al Ghamdi

 * [grabbing flight attendant Debbie Welsh from behind] Allahu Akbar!
 * We should kill her now. We don't need her.
 * [killing Debbie Welsh] In the name of God!

Ahmed al-Haznawi

 * [first lines] Ziad. It's time.

Ben Sliney

 * I'm not taking any more chances. We got stuff flying around we have no control over, and I don't want a board full of these planes hitting every building on the East Coast. This is a national emergency. Everyone lands, regardless of destination.

Others

 * Title card: Of the four aircraft hijacked that day, United 93 was the only one that did not reach its target. It crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:03am. No one survived. Military commanders were not notified that United 93 had been hijacked until four minutes after it had crashed. The nearest fighter jets were 100 miles away. At 10:18am, the President authorized the military to engage hijacked aircraft. Fearing an accidental shoot down, military commanders chose not to pass the order to pilots in the air. By 12:06pm every civilian airliner over America had been forced to land. Amidst an unprecedented military mobilization, US airspace was closed until further notice. Dedicated to the memory of all those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.

Dialogue

 * Ziad Jarrah: [in Arabic, after al-Nami has sat down next to him] What are you doing here?
 * Ahmed al-Nami: Why are we waiting?
 * Ziad Jarrah: It's not the right time. Sit and I will give you the sign.
 * Ahmed al-Nami: When?
 * Ziad Jarrah: Go and sit down.
 * Ahmed al-Nami: We have to do it now.
 * Deborah Welsh: [interrupting; to Jarrah] Would you like anything to drink?
 * Ziad Jarrah: [in English] No. I'm fine, thank you.
 * Deborah Welsh: Sure?
 * Ziad Jarrah: Yes.


 * Saeed Al-Ghamdi: [In Arabic, after grabbing flight attendant Debbie Welsh] Allahu Akbar!
 * Ahmed Al-Haznawi: Allahu Akbar! [As the passengers in the rear of the plane overhear the commotion, Ahmed Al-Haznawi stabs passenger Mark Rothenberg and then takes off his jacket, revealing his fake bomb] Allahu Akbar!


 * First Officer LeRoy Homer: [looking at message on display screen] "Beware cockpit intrusion."
 * Captain Jason Dahl: "Two aircraft hit the World Trade Center"? But we just left Newark; the weather was beautiful.
 * First Officer LeRoy Homer: That's got to be student pilots.


 * Ziad Jarrah: The brothers have hit both targets!
 * Saeed Al Ghamdi: Shall I go and tell them?
 * Ziad Jarrah: Yes. [Saeed runs out of the cockpit] Tell them our time has come! Our time has come!


 * Ahmed Al Nami: [to Saeed in Arabic] The passengers have gone to the back of the plane. They are talking together.
 * Saeed Al Ghamdi: [to Ziad in Arabic] What are we going to do? If they are planning an attack.
 * Ziad Jarrah: [In Arabic] Oh God! Oh God!
 * Saeed Al Ghamdi: [In Arabic] How much longer?
 * Ziad Jarrah: [In Arabic] Twenty minutes.
 * Saeed Al Ghamdi: [In Arabic] Twenty minutes? We can't keep going for twenty minutes!
 * Ziad Jarrah: [In Arabic] The plane can't go any faster!


 * Jeremy Glick: [to Tom Burnett] I'm trained in hand to hand. I'm trained in Judo.
 * Tom Burnett: Okay, so we go up right behind you?
 * Jeremy Glick: We have to go very fast.
 * Tom Burnett: Yes. Absolutely
 * Jeremy Glick: And I don't-I don't give a fuck if that thing's real or not. See, I'm gonna grab his arm. I'm gonna grab his arm, and I'm gonna break his arm.


 * Ahmed al Haznawi: Hey! [Haznawi waves the knife towards the passengers, then goes to open the first-class curtain to check on his fellow hijackers]
 * Jeremy Glick: [leads the passengers towards Ahmed Al-Haznawi] Go!
 * Ahmed al Haznawi: Huh? [Haznawi turns around to the commotion, a stunned look on his face]
 * Mark Bingham: Go, go, go! [Haznawi starts waving the dummy detonator in a frantic effort as the passengers charge him]
 * Ahmed al Haznawi: [In Arabic] No! No! No! No! [Glick knees Haznawi and tackles him]


 * Saeed Al Ghamdi: [seeing Bingham crushes Haznawi's skull with a fire extinguisher] [In Arabic] They're beating Haznawi! Let me go and help him!
 * Ziad Jarrah: [In Arabic] No! Hold onto something, I’m gonna lower the aircraft!


 * Tom Burnett: [After Jeremy Glick snaps Ahmed Al-Nami’s neck] The pilot! Get the pilot! [Passenger and pilot Donald Freeman Greene advances forward supported by William Joseph Cashman but Jarrah's violent rolling maneuvers cause him to lose his balance and fall over. Cashman and Fellow passengers Lauren Grandcolas, Patrick Joseph Driscoll and Alan Anthony Beaven catch him]
 * Lauren Grandcolas: No, no! C'mon! Get him up! Get him up! C'mon, you can do it


 * Saeed Al-Ghamdi: [Realizing that the passengers are moments away from breaking into the cockpit] Ziad! Ahh!
 * Ziad Jarrah: [Realizing that his mission to strike the Capitol Building has failed, Jarrah puts the plane in a nosedive] Allahu Akbar! [Outside, the passengers successfully weaken the door enough to tear it off its hinges]
 * Todd Beamer: Bring the pilot up! [As the passengers breach the cockpit, Jarrah yells in Arabic]
 * Saeed Al-Ghamdi: [in Arabic] Pull it down! [Passenger Mark Bingham enters the cockpit and overpowers Saeed]
 * [The other passengers rush Jarrah and Tom Burnett goes to grab the controls away from him]
 * Tom Burnett: Get him up! Grab his hands! Grab his hands! Get his hand!
 * Ziad Jarrah: [In Arabic] Hey, hey! Give it to me! Give it to me!
 * Todd Beamer: Pull it up! [As the passengers wrestle the hijackers for control of the yoke, the picture of the Capitol Building is knocked off of the yoke]

Taglines

 * On September 11, four planes were hijacked. Three hit their targets, one did not.
 * September 11, 2001. Four planes were hijacked. Three of them reached their target. This is the story of the fourth.
 * On September 11, one of the darkest days in our history, 40 ordinary people sat down as strangers and stood up as one.
 * United they stood.
 * The war on terror begins with 40 ordinary people.

Quotes about United 93

 * It is not too soon for "United 93," because it is not a film that knows any time has passed since 9/11. The entire story, every detail, is told in the present tense. We know what they know when they know it, and nothing else. Nothing about Al Qaeda, nothing about Osama bin Laden, nothing about Afghanistan or Iraq, only events as they unfold. This is a masterful and heartbreaking film, and it does honor to the memory of the victims.
 * Roger Ebert, review of United 93 (27 April 2006), Roger Ebert


 * Is it too soon for United 93? Is it too soon for a stark, solemn and sobering depiction of how passengers on the fourth hijacked jet of that awful morning overpowered their captors, driving their plane into the ground and sparing us what might have been the most emotionally crippling blow of all: the destruction of the U.S. Capitol. Is it too soon for that? The question vexes me. We're not talking about taste here, after all. Not one has said United 93 is a bad or exploitative movie. So the issue of whether it is 'too soon' for this film clearly springs from a less high-minded concern: that it will hurt too much; that it will be too visceral a reminder of too painful a day.
 * Leonard Pitts, as quoted in Dark Dreams 2.0: A Psychological History of the Modern Horror Film, by Charles Derry, p. 257


 * "United 93" winds up feeling like a cross between a motion picture and 90 minutes of therapy — the kind of movie we should see, in that civic obligation sort of way, rather than the kind we might actually enjoy. There’s not a lot to learn from this story; every last person in the audience knows exactly what is going to happen. The movie meanders back and forth across the line separating documentary reenactment from full-blown drama, never quite committing either way. But there’s a grit — a vicious, real-time tension — that serves to heighten rather than undermine the crescendo. Virtually every scene is hewed to a sharp and frightening simplicity, blissfully free of the usual cinematic bloviations.
 * Patrick Smith, "Ask the pilot" (12 May 2006), Salon

Cast

 * Christian Clemenson - Tom Burnett
 * Cheyenne Jackson - Mark Bingham
 * David Alan Basche - Todd Beamer
 * Peter Hermann - Jeremy Glick
 * Daniel Sauli - Richard Guadagno
 * Trish Gates - Sandra Bradshaw
 * Corey Johnson - Louis J. Nacke, II
 * Richard Bekins - William Joseph Cashman
 * Michael J. Reynolds - Patrick Joseph Driscoll
 * Khalid Abdalla - Ziad Jarrah