World Trade Center

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about World Trade Center's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of World Trade Center completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 11 October 2006 .

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie World Trade Center contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare or disturb children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

Based upon true events, the story begins with veteran sergeant John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) a Port Authority police officer in New York City waking up at 3:29 am Tuesday September 11 th 2001 and heading off to work just like any other day. When reports come in that a commuter plane has crashed into Tower One of the World Trade Center , John goes to the World Trade Center to find flames and smoke billowing from both Towers. John and three other police officers, including Will Jimeno (Michael Pena) enter Tower One just as it collapses. As Tower Two also collapses, John and Will, who are both injured, remain buried under slabs of concrete and must hope to be rescued. In the meantime, John's wife, Donna (Maria Bello) and Will's pregnant wife Allison (Maggie Gyllenhaal), are desperate for news of their husbands and also begin the long wait.

Themes

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Terrorism, Death and injury, Emotional trauma

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

World Trade Centre contains many disturbing scenes depicting the after effects of a violent terrorist attack, including the death and injury of many people, the destruction of property and intense emotional trauma. These instances are listed below.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations. Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened. Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

There are many scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children of any age, including young adolescents. Parents are reminded that children under the age of eight will be particularly concerned by visual images of destruction and injury; as children get older they will be increasingly influenced by the emotional trauma portrayed and by the ‘realistic' nature of the danger; adolescents are very aware of what is happening in the world and often feel very vulnerable.

Scenes of concern include:

• the Twin Towers collapse after being struck by passenger planes. Smoke and flames billow from the tops of the towers and the sounds of concrete, steel and glass debris crashing to the ground can be heard.
• slow motion images of waves of rubble crashing down on the tops of people's heads with people embedded in and falling through floors
• a man is shown falling to the ground from the top of one of the towers
• people completely covered head to toe in black ash walk through the streets which are littered with rubble and paper
• a woman stands in the street screaming with the whole of her face covered with blood
• people gasp for air, covering their hands over their mouths or tying cloths across their mouths
• a man lies on the sidewalk suffering a possible heart attack
• blood streams down the side of a fireman's face
• the clothes of a policeman are splattered all over with blood
• people are shown looking shocked dazed and confused, crying with their hands over their mouths.
• John and Will are covered in ash and buried up to their necks in rubble. They cry and shake with fear and scream as concrete and debris falls on them. John talks about internal bleeding and how long they can live for before rescue comes.
• Large slabs of concrete fall on Dominick, one of the other men who went in to the towers. He is covered in rubble, and with laboured breathing and blood leaking from the side of his mouth tells his friends that he is dying, shooting a gun into the air before he dies.
• Fireballs and burning debris from gas explosions hurl over John and Will with burning debris falling on Will's arm, burning it. All the policemen scream in terror
• as a result of becoming heated from fire, a gun fires bullets at John and Will
• Will asks a paramedic to cut his legs off
• after being rescued, Will is shown in a hospital bed wearing a neck brace with a swollen, bruised and bloodied hand and both legs extremely swollen, black, bruised and bloody.
• Will's pregnant wife throws up in a toilet and breaks down crying
• John's pre-teen boy who is stressed out over his missing father, lashes out verbally at his mother
• Will's preschool daughter asks her mother if her father is coming home
• Will's wife stresses and hyperventilates
• People are told that hundreds of policemen are missing after going into the World Trade Center
• People hear reports that the Pentagon has been struck by a missile or jet plane and of other buildings collapsing.
• There is an image of a wall covered with hundreds of photographs of missing people.

Product placement

None

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

• a sarcastic comment by one policeman to another who is wearing boxer shorts. He says: “I like these boxer shorts—do they make them for men too?”
• when Will is being rescued, a male police officer crawls over him and Will makes the comment “Why can't I ever get a female cop.”

Nudity and sexual activity

There is one scene in which a prostitute wears a very short skirt and lifts it up to reveal more of her thighs, wiggling her body in a suggestive manner.

Use of substances

There is some smoking and drinking in this movie.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

• fuck
• fucking
• jerk off
• goddam
• damn
• bitch
• arse
• Oh my god
• Hell
• ‘frickin'
• bastards
• pissed,
• bullshit.

The movie's message

World Trade Center is an emotionally charged movie, with a pro-American patriotic slant, based upon the real events of September 11 th 2001 . The main messages from this movie are that love can help people survive the most horrendous situations and that many can find incredible untapped strength in times of crisis.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• self sacrifice
• friendship
• responsibility
• courage
• perseverance
• compassion
• commitment.

Parents could discuss the impact of terrorism in the world today, and that while there is evil in the world, there can also be great good.