Oliver Stone Makes Another, Thankfully Cage-Free, 9/11 Flick

When it was announced that Oliver Stone was going to make a movie about the events of 9/11, opinion was instantly polarised - people were either 'woo, he's gonna go after the government' or 'oh no, he's gonna go after the government.'

In actual fact, nobody had any reason to worry - the resulting movie World Trade Centre was as inoffensively toothless as any Sunday afternoon TV movie you're ever likely to see. Unless the sight of Nicolas Cage with a pornstar moustache being trapped under some rubble while Jesus runs around handing out bottles of water to everyone offends you, that is. Which it probably should. Anyway, the main reaction to Oliver Stone's World Trade Centre was "Wha? This isn't very Oliver Stone-y. Where's all the heavy-handed controversy?" And know we know where it is - it's all going to be in Jawbreaker, Oliver Stone's next movie, which just so happens to be about 9/11 too.

World Trade Centre, the recent Oliver Stone movie, confused as many people as it delighted. While the pro-American, pro-God, pro-facial hair stance that the movie took was almost obstructively inoffensive to Middle American tastes - although not enough for it to do better than a film about dancing at the box office - it was also the least Oliver Stone-like movie that Oliver Stone has ever made.

Oliver Stone should be getting arrested for booze and drugs trouble - or at the very least making movies that are almost implausibly controversial - not making Ron Howard films about terrorist attacks, people thought. And so that's what Oliver Stone has done - not the booze and drugs thing, obviously, the making controversial movies thing. According to reports, Oliver Stone has bought the rights to Jawbreaker, a film about the American invasion of Afghanistan and the hunt for Whitney Houston-loving Osama bin Laden that immediately followed the attacks of September 11. Reuters reports:

The Oscar-winning director told Variety the book deal was kept quiet until now to prevent "World Trade Center" from being caught up in controversy surrounding the memoir, which suggests the U.S. military bungled a chance to get bin Laden… The book was written by Gary Bernstein, a CIA officer who led the so-called "Jawbreaker" paramilitary unit that helped topple the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Among his more controversial assertions is that bin Laden was present at Tora Bora during the U.S.-led assault on the region in 2001 but managed to slip away. His account contradicted public statements by President George W. Bush and retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks, former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, that U.S. officials were never certain bin Laden was at Tora Bora.

Jawbreaker sounds like it'll be good Oliver Stone controversy, but not great Oliver Stone controversy. There isn't even any casting or release news about Jawbreaker yet, so Oliver Stone has every chance to still cram a bunch more controversy into the movie. We'd like to see a scene of Osama bin Laden in a cave listening to Didn't We Almost Have It All and playing Ker-Plunk with Richard Nixon, JFK and the guy from Born On The Fourth Of July that looks like Earl from My Name Is Earl. That should probably do it.

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Oliver Stone Film Sets Sights On Osama Bin Laden - Reuters

[story by Stuart Heritage]