Black Hawk Down
Who says films can't be action-packed and thought-provoking at the same time? From its opening moments, Black Hawk Down is a tense, exciting war film that keeps you pinned to your seat and never really lets up. Gritty, gory and memorably photographed, Black Hawk Down is certainly one of the best war films in recent memory.
It's 1992, and some 300,000 Somalians have died of starvation. U.S. military forces head to the area to help deliver U.N. food shipments, because Somali warlords - specifically one named Mohamed Farrah Aidid - are more interested in protecting their turf than feeding their people.
The military comes up with a plan to help bring Aidid down: Stage a surprise raid by helicopter-borne troops and ground forces on a meeting of the warlord's top lieutenants. It's supposed to be an easy task, but things quickly go awry. A man falls from a helicopter and is injured when he misses his descent rope. Enemy rockets bring down two ÒBlack HawkÓ helicopters. The warlord's troops and unfriendly natives gather quickly and surround the U.S. positions. With roadblocks and poor communications preventing help from arriving, and darkness quickly descending, the soldiers' desperation slowly rises.
Director Ridley Scott, who delivered the goods with Gladiator but dropped the ball on Hannibal, is back in prime form here. He brings you into the action with a relentlessness that gives you an idea of the exhaustion the troops felt. He also doesn't flinch from the conflict's more brutal aspects, from the soldiers' desperate attempt to fix a comrade's severed femoral artery to a young Somalian child hugging his dead father in the street. And he expertly captures the feel of this starvation-riddled country.
Partial credit must go to cinematographer Slavomir Idziak, whose camerawork brilliantly captures the chaos of the struggle. Though it doesn't reach the stunning heights of Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan - the benchmark for all war films - it does leave a lasting impression.
The acting isn't the emphasis here, and as such it's appropriate that the cast seems to blend in with one another. Still, Tom Sizemore makes a notable impression as a grizzled war veteran, and Josh Hartnett acquits himself from his lackluster Pearl Harbor turn. The biggest disappointment is Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge), a great actor who's saddled with a thankless role.
The screenplay, while doing an expert job at throwing you into the heat of the action, doesn't leave much room for character development. Still, in a film like this, that seems more like a defensible, conscious choice than a significant flaw.
Less forgivable, though, is the film's depiction (or lack thereof) of the Somalian people. Considering that more than 300,000 Somalians had died of starvation, it's puzzling that the Somalians in Black Hawk Down are less than enthused about the presence of U.S. soldiers. O.K., I know that Mohamed Farrah Aidid and Co. are "protecting their turf." But that doesn't account for the hundreds of Somalian civilians in the film that alternately hurl rocks and kicks at U.S. soldiers, not to mention celebrating the death of a U.S. soldier by tossing him on top of an enormous crowd. There's something deeper going on here, and while my dearth of current events knowledge is partially to blame, there's no getting around the fact that the film doesn't get to the heart of this question -- a fact that's highlighted by the film-ending footnote that 19 Americans lost their lives in the fighting ... and more than 1,000 Somalians.
Still, the film deserves credit for not stooping to cheesy speechmaking and fiery rhetoric about the nature of war - instead, it makes a more powerful statement by simply displaying its brutality. With its intense look at this gritty conflict, Black Hawk Down ranks as one of the year's most memorable films.
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The gruesome war scenes and overall intensity will get your stomach churning without the help of alcoholic beverages.
This male-dominated, violent flick is about as unromantic as it gets, even with heartthrobs Josh Hartnett and Ewan McGregor on hand.
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