Oliver Stone, a filmmaker well acquainted with controversy, swallows his usual political bile to craft this harrowing tribute to the men and women of the emergency services who lost their lives on September 11, 2001, in New York City. Faced with so many heartbreaking stories of courage and sacrifice that autumn day, Stone and screenwriter Andrea Berloff focus their attention in World Trade Center on the true experiences of two families, whose lives are forever changed by attacks on the Twin Towers.

Through the eyes of these men, women and children, we relive the confusion, horror and disbelief as America bears witness to the most devastating terrorist attack on its soil. Archival news footage captures the reactions of politicians that day but, for the most part, the filmmakers recreate events on eerily accurate sets, based on well-documented photographs and iconic television images, augmented with computer special effects.

Sergeant John McLoughlin (Nicolas Cage), from the Port Authority Police Department, drives in early to work in mid-town Manhattan. Like his fellow officers, he braces himself for another busy day in the Big Apple. Then CNN television footage relays news that an aircraft has hit the North Tower. "What schmuck would fly a plane into the World Trade Center?" wonders one cop, unable to believe what he is seeing. "Maybe they ran out of gas?" answers another.

McLoughlin and his team respond quickly, racing through the bustling streets to assess the damage. With his men looking to him for guidance, McLoughlin says candidly: "We prepared for everything: car bombs, chemical, biological, an attack from the top, but this, not for something this size. There's no plan. We didn't make any."

As the scale of the disaster becomes apparent, McLoughlin races into the World Trade Center with four men including William Jimeno (Michael Pena). The structure collapses, trapping McLoughlin and Jimeno beneath 20ft of rubble and twisted masonry. Waiting for rescue, the two men try to keep each other alive, dreaming of the moment they will be reunited with their wives Donna (Maria Bello) and Allison (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

World Trade Center is brilliantly realised, cutting back and forth between the two stricken men and their families.

Stone directs with sensitivity, finding moments of eerie calm in the midst of the devastation, like when ex-Marine Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon) gets his first look at Ground Zero and remarks, "It looks like God made a curtain with the smoke, shielding us from what we are not yet ready to see." Interestingly, at the end of the film, this man of God darkly intones: "They're gonna need some good men out there to avenge this."

At 129 minutes, the film is overlong and paints the two trapped men as saints. When their lives flash before their eyes, they see a montage of soft-lit greeting card moments with their families that are just too perfect, milking tears when no emotional manipulation should be necessary.