Only 20 people were pulled alive from the rubble of the World Trade Center. The new film "World Trade Center" tells an intimate story of the 18th and 19th men rescued, New York Port Authority Police Sgt. John McLoughlin (Nicholas Cage) and Officer William Jimenez (Michael Peña).

Hollywood’s second 9/11 film is like "United 93" in some ways, which retold the story of the passengers aboard the plane that crashed into Pennsylvania farmland after a struggle with the hijackers. "World Trade Center" returns the viewer to the immediate emotional feelings of the day--the shock and chaos, confusion and disbelief. Like "United 93", "World Trade Center" is almost apolitical--a marvel for some who anticipate conspiracies in every film directed by Oliver Stone ("JFK", "Born on the Fourth of July"). Still, the two hour, six minute film returns viewers in 2006 to another political reality—where Americans were united, and the world wept along with us, if only for a brief time.

The trailer promoting the film features a satellite image of lower Manhattan on that day. And though this PG-13 film is set in the context of that earth-shattering event, it focuses on the intimate and personal relationships of these two men.

Responding to a crisis for which there is no  plan, a small team of officers volunteer to follow Sgt. McLoughlin into the towers on a rescue operation. Just into the main concourse, the first tower collapses. "World Trade Center" vividly depicts the sense of being inside the hell of a collapsing building.

“What good did we do?” asks Jimenez, who is well-portrayed by Peña (who starred as the locksmith in "Crash", the Oscar-winning best picture of 2005). Yet Jimenez, one of only a few of the Port Authority officers to volunteer to go into the tower, realizes that heroism and courage begin in a willingness to act. Later, he reassures McLoughlin, guilt-ridden for having led his men into the tower, “They couldn’t live with themselves if they hadn’t gone in.”

The film alternates between the claustrophobic space inhabited by McLoughlin and Jimenez and the anxious vigils and shared memories of their waiting families.

The strongest message of the film is that humans are intrinsically connected--through memories the men share with their loved ones, through their pained conversation as they try to motivate each other to fight for life and through the selfless responses of others involved in their rescue.

The most vivid of those human responses is a true story that involved retired Marine Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon). Karnes describes feeling a call from God to put on his uniform and go to the tragedy’s epicenter to try to rescue people from the rubble. Dissuaded by his pastor and averting the restricted access, Karnes turned out to be one of the men who found the place where the two officers were trapped.

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