I tried. I'd never heard of this movie before it aired on my local TV and my first thoughts were: -Oh, another 9/11 movie (not that there has been that many so far) -Starring Charlie Sheen? Ok why not, he used to be known for being a fine actor after all -Starring Whoopie Goldberg, mmhh ok -Starring Gina Gershon? Now that's interesting -Oh and there's this actor you see everywhere since always! Luis Guzman! -Wait, what? People trapped in an elevator after the attack? That rings a bell but you say this is a fiction? WTH? So I thought, ok, maybe a straight to video movie, let's give it a try anyway. Well, I tried to watch it without any prejudice, I didn't go to Rottentomatoes (I never do), I didn't watch the users' reviews. And the result is so poor IMHO that I can't believe they even bothered to release it on big screens. The clichés are so expectable you can only laugh. The couple soon to be divorced making up in the end? Check. The crying mom saying I love you to her son? Check. The hero trapped at the last minutes just when you think that everybody will escape? Check. Etc. This is badly written, badly directed, and worse of all, badly acted, and it makes me cringe to write this about all these people involved. No chemistry, anywhere. It just didn't work. It should have, it could have, it didn't.

No idea why many reviews are so poor. I loved it. Suspenseful, believable interactions between the actors under extreme duress, and acting was well done. Not a fan of Charlie sheen myself but I have to give credit where it's due - he was excellent here.

In the closing screen credits, the filmmakers of "9/11" implore the audience to "never forget" the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Unfortunately, this film treatment is all-too-forgettable.The film was adapted from a work of theater by Patrick James Carson, and, predictably, the characters are wooden and the dialogue is stage-bound. It is fairly difficult to "open up" the environment of a trapped-in-an-elevator story into a work of cinema. As the five passengers stuck between the 37th and 38th floors of the North Tower realize, they must pass the time through a deep, profound confessional about their lives. But the confessionals were neither deep nor profound.There was an effort to bring star power to the film in the casting of Charlie Sheen as Jeffrey Cage, the former "king of Wall Street," who visited the World Trade Center on 9/11 in order to finalize his divorce with his wife Eve (Gina Gershon). Luis Guzmán plays the dedicated "custodial engineer" Eddie. Olga Fonda is the gorgeous woman (Eddie is chided for calling her a mija who merits the score of "10") who has come to the tower to break off a relationship with an older man. And Wood Harris plays Eddie, the messenger, who reluctantly went to work that day instead of spending it with his daughter on her birthday. Whoppi Goldberg's character is fumbling around in the control room, helpless in her efforts to assist the apparently doomed souls trapped in the elevator.It is important to remember the victims and heroic first responders of 9/11. But this film played out more like a maudlin made-for-television movie than a feature film that sought to memorialize one of the most awful days in our history.

I must agree with another reviewer. I don't understand the bad reviews-this was a great portrayal of "unsung" victims. We know of the ones on the plane and the rescue teams, but we rarely hear of the ones that were in the Twin Towers. We can't rewrite what happened: we know how it ends. But this movie is not low-budget by far. It's a good way to see all perspectives. Kuddos!