Television Review: DC 9/11: Time of Crisis (2003)

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, represent not only the most spectacular but arguably the most consequential events of the early 21st century. The debate surrounding their geopolitical, societal, and moral aftermath continues unabated, with a growing consensus that the world descended into a more precarious and fractious state following that fateful date. Central to this debate is the role and conduct of the individual who bore the ultimate responsibility for the United States' response: President George W. Bush. One of the more obscure, yet deeply intriguing, contributions to this ongoing discourse arrived just two years later in the form of DC 9/11: Time of Crisis, a 2003 television docudrama directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith.

Airing on Showtime on September 11, 2003, the film commences in the pre-dawn hours at the Pentagon before shifting to the now-iconic scene at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Florida. It dramatises President Bush's (played by Timothy Bottoms) moment of realisation upon hearing of the second plane striking the World Trade Center, his subsequent rushed return to Washington, and the administration's scramble to comprehend the scale of the coordinated assault. The narrative arc concludes with Bush's address to a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001, framing the film as a chronicle of the nine most critical days of his presidency.

The film's production context is essential to its critique. By 2003, Bush was a profoundly divisive global figure, his initial post-9/11 unity having eroded under the controversial invasion of Iraq. This animosity was particularly acute within Hollywood's creative class, which produced a wave of works aimed at influencing the 2004 election, most famously Michael Moore's scorching polemic Fahrenheit 9/11. DC 9/11 positions itself, both intentionally and in the view of contemporary critics, as the direct antithesis to Moore's film. This ideological stance stems from its screenwriter, Lionel Chetwynd, a rare openly conservative voice in Hollywood and a vocal supporter of Bush. This affiliation granted the production unprecedented access to White House insights, with the president reportedly keen to have his perspective dramatised. Consequently, many dismissed the film upon release as mere hagiographic propaganda—a charge that is not without merit, as the narrative makes no pretence of objectivity or comprehensive critique.

However, to dismiss DC 9/11 as merely cheap propaganda is to overlook its peculiar value. While it does not offer a balanced account, it functions as a more or less accurate dramatic reconstruction of events as they were known and officially recounted by 2003. Its true significance lies not in historical revelation but in its function as a contemporaneous artefact. It provides a uniquely curated, presidential perspective on the crisis. In doing so, it serves as a valuable primary source for cultural historians, illustrating not just the events themselves but how the Bush administration wished its immediate response to be perceived and memorialised at that specific juncture, before the full weight of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had settled into public consciousness.

Divorced from its fraught political context, DC 9/11 is, by conventional standards, a dry and serviceable telefilm. Its style and pacing are reminiscent of the sober docudramas produced by broadcast networks like the BBC, prioritising a linear, procedural recounting over stylistic flair or deep psychological exploration. What elevates it somewhat is its committed cast, assembled largely on the basis of physical resemblance to their real-life counterparts.Timothy Bottoms, in particular, delivers a performance that strives for more than mimicry. He labours to inhabit Bush's reported shock and grief, attempting to render the president as both a resolute statesman and a genuinely affected human being. His casting carried an ironic footnote, having previously played a caricatured version of Bush in the short-lived satire That's My Bush! earlier in 2001.

The supporting cast offers its own layer of intertextual interest, particularly for viewers of contemporary television drama. Gregory Itzin, who portrays Attorney General John Ashcroft, would later gain fame playing the duplicitous President Charles Logan in 24, while Penny Johnson Jerald, playing National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, had concurrently portrayed the manipulative First Lady Sherry Palmer on the same series. Jerald would later reprise her role as Rice in the 2006 miniseries The Path to 9/11, further intertwining her career with dramatisations of this era.

Ultimately, DC 9/11: Time of Crisis is a fascinating, if flawed, historical curio. It fails as rigorous documentary or nuanced drama, its narrative boundaries firmly set by its partisan intent. Yet, its very existence as a deliberate, state-sanctioned counter-narrative to the rising tide of Bush-era criticism grants it a distinct importance. For scholars and students of media, political communication, and the post-9/11 cultural landscape, it stands as a stark example of how history is dramatised in real-time, not by neutral observers, but by vested participants in the story they are telling.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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