Based on the true (personal) story, World Trade Center is about John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and William Jimeno (Michael Pena), two New York Port Authority police officers who, along with three of their fellow officers (and hundreds of other first responders), raced into the burning towers to help with evacuating survivors. Before they had the chance to begin, however, the first tower collapsed. McLoughlin and Jimeno, the only survivors of their group, found themselves pinned under 20 feet of rubble and now in need of rescue themselves.

While the two men struggled to keep themselves - and each other - alive, their wives, children and parents also went through their own version of hell. Until an ex-Marine from Connecticut, who had left work that day to help with the recovery operations, found the two 12 hours later, the McLoughlin and Jimeno families had had no word of whether their loved ones were in the towers when they collapsed, or had survived if they were.

Of all the filmmakers working in Hollywood today to direct a 9/11 film, Oliver Stone would not have been my first, tenth, or twentieth choice. When I heard that his name was attached to the project, my eyes rolled of their own volition. Images of multiple film stocks, migrane-inducing edits, politicising and the odd conspiracy theory filled my mind and forced me to shudder. Gone was the director who delivered passionate and brilliant dramas such as Salvador, Platoon and JFK, replaced by a director so enamoured with psychedilic visuals and near-incoherent narratives. You might be able to get away with this type of filmmaking with Natural Born Killers or Alexander, but not with a fact-based 9/11 drama.

Much to my relief, Stone learned the meaning of the word "restraint" sometime between Alexander and World Trade Center. The veteran helmer leaves the irritating acid-trip flourishes at home and delivers a straightforward, emotional and ultimately inspiring tale of courage and survival. He draws an ample amount of his directorial strength from Andrea Berloff's screenplay and his fine ensemble cast and perfectly caputres the claustrophobic hell that John and Will endured. He also derives great benefit from superb production and sound design as well as a low-key but very heartfelt musical score by Craig Armstrong.

The film does stumble, if only once or twice. Moments such as two hallucinations - one involving Jesus delivering a bottle of water to Jimeno and another involving McLoughlin and his wife arguing about...kitchen cabinets? - could have been better handled or left out completely. And Berloff's dialogue every so often slips into cliché. Fortunately, this isn't enough to switch us off or obscure the efforts of cast and crew to deliver the goods.

Cage delivers an understated turn as McLoughlin that looks like one of his better acting jobs. Pena, whom you might remember as the Latino locksmith from Crash, is equally impressive in his first real lead role. The two leads are given solid support from Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello as spouses Allison Jimeno and Donna McLoughlin, while Michael Shannon is effective as Dave Karnes, the former Marine who found the spot where McLoughlin and Jimeno were buried alive.

World Trade Center works on several levels. It successfully recreates the atmosphere and events at Ground Zero on 9/11. It's also an engrossing and inspiring drama that shows how the worst of circumstances can bring out the best in people. But perhaps most importantly, the film serves as a tribute to those who risked their lives on that fateful day to save thousands of others. It does this not with cheap emotional manipulation, but with a great deal of respect.

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