The movie World Trade Center showed us what most of us didn’t see on Sept. 11. It went past the news cameras and right into the mountain of rubble and twisted steel, which what used to be the World Trade Center. We are shown what it truly was like to be a survivor in the rubble, just trying to live for not only their own lives, but for the loved ones back home. This movie isn’t about what the government did in response to the attack or even what the terrorists did, it’s about what citizens did in response.

World Trade Center follows the true accounts of police officers John McLaughlin and William J. Jimeno from waking up that morning to being trapped under concrete and steel. They are average people with families, so it became quite easy to become connected with the two men.

Some of us may not have known anyone who personally suffered from the attack, but the portrayals of these two men and their families brought us there and showed us what it was like. Do I or anyone else want to know what I was like to go through such an ordeal? Of course not, but WTC gives you a much clearer understanding of what happened from the citizens point of view, not what the TV showed us.

The movie sticks us right in the rubble, face-to-face feeling the claustrophobia with the two officers in what they thought were their dwindling hours. We stood by their families as they watch the news reports, wait for the phone to ring and try to help each other.

WTC also shows us that there is hope no matter what happens to us. As long as we stand strong and we have each other we will pull through. It attempts to show that there was more than just destruction on 9-11; there was the drive of love for family, friends and even complete strangers.

All of the actors did a good job projecting the emotion to capture the audience to feel the same. Usually after a movie, the theater is full of commotion. When this movie ended, however, they walked out in silence, not wanting to comment about it.

I believe we were all struck by the emotional deliverance of the movie on behalf of the actors, but perhaps more so because it was real five years ago. If this movie was about a made up attack it definitely wouldn’t have been as powerful. But it triggered emotions we remember feeling and maybe not wanting to remember.

World Trade Center is a well-done emotional look at the lives of only a couple of the victims of the World Trade Center. It is not shoveled together with multimillion-dollar special effects with big explosions and graphic scenes. Nor does it aim to portray the event as a big spectacle, but a day we will always remember with grief.