The American Spectator

Reader Mail

p> TO BE FAIR br> Re: James Bowman's review of United 93 : /p>

Other than Bowman, the Wall Street Journal's Morgenstern seems to be the only one putting the breaks on the outpouring of critical adulation for United 93. In a fleeting sentence Morgenstern lets slip his sense that maybe the film went too far in trying to be fair to the terrorists. Which makes it all the more incomprehensible to hear and read so much about how the movie "reminds us who we're fighting." In his op-ed for the WSJ, Todd Beamer's father also vouches for the flick's efficacy in this regard. If he says so too, well then it must be powerfully true.

But for Bowman's specific point-by-point dissent, we might not be hearing from anybody about the subtle ways in which the film may well work in a manner contrary to those goals. For one viewer that this reader overheard while exiting from a screening late Saturday night, the movie only showed "how stupid our President is." So we get two reminders for the price of one: we're also fighting those who refuse to see the hijackers for who and what they are. Greenglass's mild-mannered until-they-do-their-thing, quietly, devoutly praying, "no thank you ma'am" and "I love you" muttering Muslims aren't any reminder at all of whom "we're fighting."

p>Another recent movie, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West goes immeasurably further than United 93 does in suggesting with whom we are verily at war. It shakes the viewer much more severely and in an unforgettable manner. Unfortunately it saw nothing comparable to the major distribution afforded the latest release from Universal. br> -- N. Spiegel

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