BEFORE: I thought about saving this movie for September, but the linking is putting it here, between two movies with Michael Keaton, and who am I to tell the linking that it's wrong? I've got a chain worked out for September, though, and I don't see a way to move this one there and work it in, there's just not enough of a connection. So here it remains, on a boring Saturday afternoon when it's too hot to go anywhere, and anyways, I've got no place I need to be.
Michael Keaton carries over from "The Protégé".
THE PLOT: An attorney in Washington D.C. battles against cynicism, bureaucracy and politics to help the victims of 9/11.
AFTER: My first thought on this film, when I heard about it, was "How is this a movie?" I just didn't get how the subject matter would be able to hold anyone's attention for nearly two hours. Now that I've seen it, I'm wondering, "How is this a movie?" Or, perhaps more accurately, WHY is this a movie? Sure, I watched it until the end, but I'm a professional - I don't see a casual viewer sticking with it, there's just no real action to it.
I guess they made movies out of every other aspect of 9/11, and the compensation fund was the only thing left? That can't be how movies work, though. I just don't see how people filing claims for benefits after could possibly constitute a movie plot, even after watching it. This should not exist, in a way, but then again, in a weird way it does. Yes, it's true that Kenneth Feinberg was appointed as the Special Master of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. And yes, it's true that there was some reluctance on the part of the eligible victims to file claims, because.... well, for a lot of reasons, but chief among them was maybe that to collect money, they had to waive their right to sue the airlines or the government, and maybe people were getting legal advice from shady lawyers that one should never DO that.
Other people may have considered the fund "blood money" or perhaps misunderstood the implications of filing a claim, or maybe there were some people who just didn't trust the government, no matter what. Still others may have still been dealing with their grief, and felt that once they received compensation, the grieving process would be over, and they weren't ready for that. The point is that there were maybe a lot of reasons why the eligible victims of 9/11 didn't file at first, and Feinberg and his deputy, Camille Biros, and the other people at their law firm needed to find out WHY - because if they didn't reach a certain threshold of a percentage of eligible people filing, it meant that the non-filers could get together in a class-action lawsuit that still had the power to bankrupt the airline industry and/or put a serious hurt on the U.S. economy.
According to this film, there was also a formula that the fund managers used to calculate the worth of a human being, and that formula took income into consideration, however that may have been a mistake, because in essence the formula then places a larger value on the life of a CEO than on the life of a janitor or dishwasher. Some people took offense at this, most likely the families of the janitors and dishwashers. The actuarial tables, in other words, couldn't possibly keep track of variables that mattered to victims and their families, ones that were more intangible.
Just about two years ago (July 17, 2021) my wife and I went to the 9/11 museum, after avoiding it for a fair number of years. We bought tickets online but then almost went to the wrong one, there's a shady, unofficial 9/11 museum a few blocks south, and we got off the subway near it and mistook it for the real one. The fact that there were no lines to enter should have been the tip-off - anyway I heard this shady one closed down recently. But then we walked a few more blocks north to the REAL 9/11 Museum, and after a while we were sort of unprepared for how it made us feel. OK, it's one thing to marvel at a half-melted fire engine on display, or to see other debris like pieces of the old radio antenna that used to be on top of the Twin Towers - but then when we saw the large displays of shoes, purses and other personal effects of the victims, it started to feel a lot more creepy. I remember there was also a video monitor that replayed the plane crashing into one of the towers - and it was on a loop, so you could see it happen again and again, every 15 seconds or so. Then in the footprint of the towers, they had marked the spot where, 1/4 up above, the plane struck the tower - that was all a bit too much for us, and that's when we decided to leave. I'm sure the people who run the museum have good intentions, and it's all in the name of history and getting the facts right, but I don't think I'll be back to visit the museum again, if it's OK with you. I lived through that day once and I'd rather not relive it.
I got a bit confused watching "Worth" because the legislation authorizing the victim compensation was championed by Senator Kennedy, and based on the actor playing this senator, I thought he was supposed to be Sen. John Neely Kennedy, from Louisiana. No, this bill was supported by Sen. Edward Kennedy from Massachusetts, they just apparently couldn't find an actor who looked very much like him. I forgot that "Ted" Kennedy was still alive and a senator in 2001, and he was very involved with the legislation that provided counseling and healthcare benefits for the families of the 9/11 victims, and he was the one who recommended his former chief of staff, Kenneth Feinberg, for the position of the Special Master for the fund. Ted Kennedy also spoke with all of the Massachusetts families who lost members in the attacks. Jeez, we think back on Ted Kennedy and we think about his drinking problem and maybe even Chappaquiddick, but maybe we should remember this about him before all that.
Also starring Amy Ryan (last seen in "Jack Goes Boating"), Stanley Tucci (last seen in "Prelude to a Kiss"), Tate Donovan (last seen in "Respect"), Shunori Ramanatham (last seen in "The Big Sick"), Talia Balsam (last seen in "The Many Saints of Newark"), Laura Benanti (last seen in "Here Today"), Chris Tardio, Ato Blankson-Wood (last seen in "The Kindergarten Teacher"), Carolyn Mignini, Victor Slezak (last seen in "The Land of Steady Habits"), Alfredo Narciso (last seen in "The Dark Tower"), Jason Kravits (last seen in "Sweet November"), Clifton Samuels, Ian Blackman (last seen in "The First Purge"), Connie Ray (last seen in "A Very Brady Sequel"), Steve Vinovich (last seen in "Shirley"), Bill Winkler (last seen in "Hillbilly Elegy"), Jeff Biehl (last seen in "Ricki and the Flash"), Stephanie Heitman, Deborah Hedwell (last seen in "You Don't Know Jack"), Tom Bruno, David Fierro, Lynne Wintersteller, Jon Wenc, Wass Stevens (last seen in "Reprisal"), Zuzanna Szadkowski, Gayle Rankin (last seen in "The Meyerowitz Stories"), Catherine Curtin (last seen in "The Half of It"), Shernita Anderson, Andy Schneeflock, Brandon Hernandez, E.R. Ruiz, Johanna Day (last seen in "The Post"), Joseph Ragno, Miriam Morales, James Ciccone, Anthoula Katsimatides (last seen in "The Family"), Logan Hart, Vihaan Samat, Laura Sohn, Rebeca Martinez and the voice of Marc Maron (last heard in "DC League of Super-Pets") with archive footage of Tom Brokaw (last seen in "Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over")
RATING: 4 out of 10 Fedex deliveries
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