September 11 film awaits public response

New Yorkers are wary. But reviews of "World Trade Center" are in, and the critics are united -- Americans should watch Oliver Stone's vision of September 11, which opened Wednesday.

Stone's film recounts the miraculous tale of how two police officers of the New York and New Jersey Port Authority are rescued from the rubble of twin towers that crumbled under direct hits from two jumbo-jets hijacked by Al-Qaeda in 2001.

A tragedy that claimed some 2,800 lives has haunted Americans and many people affected by the attack said last week during the movie's city sneak preview that they were unlikely to ever watch.

The phrase "too soon" has been spinning around the media and the city itself.

But some critics said the movie was inspired and could not be ignored.

"An expertly crafted, respectful piece of inspirational filmmaking," said the New York Post.

The paper noted that Stone has made enemies of some Americans by making movies that questioned the war in Vietnam and spun conspiracies about who might have been behind the assassination of president John F. Kennedy.

This one stays out of politics, the Post said, focusing on the heart-rending story itself.

"Stone's most mainstream, crowd-pleasing work since 'Platoon' and 'Wall Street' in the 1980s," said the paper.

The New York Times called the film "almost unbearably moving" and hailed Stone as one of the most important film makers of the generation.

"There is really no other American director who can move so swiftly and emphatically from intimate to epic scale, saturating even quiet moments with fierce emotion," The New York Times wrote.

It said the movie, "from the first frame to last, (is) almost unbearably moving."

Movie-goers leaving an afternoon screening of the film at the Regal Union Square movie theater gave it a thumbs-up.

Irma Munoz, a teacher who was in nearby Long Island during the attacks, told AFP: "I definitely liked it. I feel it was something we needed to see, a different side of the story. I like to know what happened to the people who went there and tried to save other people.

"I cried throughout the movie," she added.

Filiberto Coatl, a waiter, was shaken. He said the film was "inspiring, but a bit too much, too powerful. I was here five years ago."

Both Stone and Paramount Pictures, which released the film, understood from the start the project's sensitivity.

Both have promised to give a portion of the receipts to groups helping the victims' families and a memorial now being built on the tragic site in lower Manhattan, now known as Ground Zero.

Some groups have already accused Stone of not giving enough and profiteering from one of the most painful moments in US history.

But film critics said Stone has redeemed himself.

"The movie is certainly well-made, it's a good film," said Gitesh Pandya, an industry analyst at the boxofficeguru.com Internet site.

"It's very uplifting, given the tragic story," Pandya said. "I think there is a certain curiosity out there across the country, maybe more so outside of the New York and northeast area, that would like to see a story about heroes that came out of this tragedy. And that's really what this movie is."

He expected the movie to come in "a strong number two" at the North American box office this weekend, noting that both the film's star, Nicolas Cage, and Stone had national followings and would draw in audience no matter the subject.

Some victims' families who have taken an active part in helping survivors recover their lives said the story was more important to tell for the nation as whole rather than New York itself.

Memories further away from Ground Zero die faster and the heroes of the day had to be memorialized, said Mary Fetchet, the founding director of the Voices of September 11, who lost her son in the attack.

"People in Kansas don't feel like we do in New York ... the stories have to be documented," she said.