Why do they keep showing the same thing over and over?" cries a distraught spouse, as families of those caught up in the horror watch the Twin Towers collapsing on a myriad news bulletins.

No fiction could match those real, yet blockbuster-like, images.

Stone avoids aircraft and smoke-filled offices by going underground. World Trade Center focuses on two policemen, Sgt John McCoughlin (Nicolas Cage) and officer Will Jimeno (Michael Pea), who are summoned to the scene as 'first responders' when a jet hits the North Tower. The film doesn't look like it was directed by Stone - it's unashamedly sentimental for a start, resorting frequently to soft-focus flashbacks. A scene of a mother fluffing sheets and gazing at her children is reminiscent of a washing powder commercial.

The film is also conservative. It eschews Stone's normally bombastic camerawork and staccato editing in favour of simple vantage points and frequent switching between the bleached Ground Zero, the colourful world of the suburbs, and the trapped men's blurred minds.

Furthermore, it's apolitical. President Bush appears only fleetingly; nobody moans about the authorities' failures. This is about confusion, not conspiracy. Had I been unaware of the director's identity, I might have guessed it was a Ron Howard movie.

Stone has succeeded in producing a slab of pro-family, flagwaving Americana. Whether British audiences will find it tugs at the heart strings is debatable.