World Trade Center

In a work of considerable restraint and emotional directness, there are only slivers of Stone’s needling intensity and political paranoia — Bush appears only on a passing television screen.

There's no need to overdramatize something as inherently dramatic as this. Stone keeps his camera tight on these guys, conveying palpable sensations of weight, heat, dust and claustrophobia....

It is unlikely you will ever again use the word "harrowing"; with blithe abandon after spending so much time trapped with these two unlikely survivors in the groaning rubble of the shattered monoliths.