Still not getting it

Matthew Hoy
By Matthew Hoy on April 29, 2006

"United 93" hits the theaters this weekend, and it's gotten largely positive reviews. The movie review compilation site RottenTomatoes.com notes the movie, with a 93 percent positive rating, is the best-reviewed drama so far this year.

Of course, there's that 7 percent who don't like the film. Among them is the Union-Tribune's own David Elliott. Generally, if Elliott doesn't like a movie, it's pretty good.

I read Elliott's review and there was one paragraph that just jumped out at me. It quickly became apparent that Elliott is one of those Americans who still don't get it.

The terrorists are decal demons, humanly nervous but anonymous. They pour “faith” on everything, like a moral disinfectant. Their pilot is first seen at his hotel reciting from the Koran. But linking a Koran to a bomb and martyr cries (“God is great!”) only makes it too easy to hate Islam, not plumb the motivations behind a callous death wish.

Telegram for Elliott. Telegram for Elliott.

Islam is the reason these @%$&(*) killed nearly 3,000 Americans. The only 100 percent sure way to know you're gettting into Muslim paradise is if you die in jihad (not the "personal struggle" kind). Helping the poor ... providing for the weak ... as a Muslim, you're still subject to Allah's whim as to whether or not you get into heaven.

Elliott wants there to be some deeper motivation behind this mass murder. Well, there can't be a much deeper motivation behind anything than religion. World poverty? These guys weren't poor, but if poverty is the deeper motivation, then they'd rob someone. Americans troops stationed in Saudi Arabia? The 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon taught everyone that if you want to get U.S. troops out of the Middle East, you bomb the troops, not downtown Manhattan.

It's odd that the American left is so quick to ascribe "bad" motives to religion when it's Christianity (think Matthew Shepherd, abortion clinic bombings, etc.). But when the religion is Islam, they become mental contortionists in their zeal to separate the religion from the behavior of its adherents.

To Elliott it may look like the terrorists are "decal demons," and "United 93" is a smear against the "religion of peace," but fact remains that the one thing all 19 terrorists on 9/11 had in common was Islam. Wishing can't change that.

0 comments on “Still not getting it”

  1. I used to live in San Diego, and I quickly learned that Eliot is an idiot after going to a few movies he had rated highly (The Mangler anyone?, 3 and half stars, still remember that one). How he keeps his job as critic as beyond me, so yes, if he doesn't like a picture, that is often a positive, and if he likes a movie I think I want to see, I worry.

  2. My wife and I just came back from the theater. A powerful movie. Just as with Apollo 13, knowing the ending doesn't change the emotional impact.

    I will say, however, that I was disappointed in the audience. Only four people stayed to watch the credits to see the names of the passengers and crew of United 93. It seems to me that we should know their names.

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