Black Hawk Down (Superbit) > Reviews > "All our ignorance brings us closer to death."

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Disliked it
Story	Very ordinary
Characters / Performances	Satisfactory
Special Effects	Outstanding
How does it compare to similar films?	Weak

Advantages:	Superb action
Disadvantages:	Politically and emotionally empty

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Black Hawk Down (2001)

It’s 1993, Somalia, a large east African country. Delta Squad, one of America’s elite army ranger units, is preparing for a smash and grab mission to capture two high ranking enemy officials. To do so they must enter the most hostile district in the capital, Mogadishu. Over 100 troops enter the city by via armoured vehicle and black hawk helicopters. All is going to plan until a soldier is wounded and their progress slowed. The enemy are in very large numbers, soon out numbering the foot soldiers. When one Black Hawk is shot down they must move to help any survivors further complicating the operation. It quickly becomes clear that they will be stuck in these streets a lot longer than the planned half an hour.

Ridley Scott (Bladerunner, Gladiator) directs the action – and there is an awful lot of it. For action junkies this is a pure shot of adrenalin, but others may find it too quick and to follow in the initial scenes of combat. Scott draws from his experience of epic battles in Gladiator. The shaky, mud flinging style is identical and superbly staged, with more than a liberal amount of realistic blood and guts. Scott doesn’t back away from the deadly realities of war making this not for the squeamish.

The cast is full of known names. Josh Hartnett (40 Days and 40 Nights) provides the only character to really follow and care for as the sergeant of a group of soldiers pinned down deep in enemy territory. Ewan McGregor plays another central grunt, but looked somewhat out of place, and was underused considering the connection we are expected to make with him. Tom Sizemore (Natural Born Killers) is great as the Lieutenant Colonel in charge in the field, although his performance is all show and little depth. Sam Shepherd and Jason Isaacs put in decent support.

So where does it all go wrong? It comes down to fundamentals. I enjoy films with a good story and good characters. This is a very detailed account of a real combat situation; many have praised it for such accuracy. However, a lot of people know nothing about what happened in Somalia, myself included, and I’ve learned nothing more from watching this film. If it was supposed to be from the soldiers point of view then fine, I would hope to find some well drawn characters with some insight to their point of view. Unfortunately we only hear about two minutes of what they think of the war and there are so many of them that it is hard to get their names, let alone a perspective. Of everybody I felt only Josh Hartnett was given enough material to begin to form a relationship with the audience. It also didn’t help that half of them all looked the same. I swear the same guy died twice and was still alive at the end.
Looking further than the Americans for any emotional or intellectual involvement would be very foolish. The one dimensional characterisations of the Somalian militia, effectively as cannon fodder, could easily be been deemed offensive. Regardless of any brutalities on their part, they at least have the right to accurate representation.

Scott failed to find an admirable purpose for making this film. Yes, it’s a good account of what happened, but without any context as to why it happened, should it have happened and will it happen again? I can marvel at the achievements of a brave team of soldiers through a newspaper or documentary and I expect those formats would have provided more background information to make me fully appreciate the circumstances they were occurring in. Without this context all we are left with is an action film, and I believe there are larger issues to be discussed with regards to war and foreign policy. I thought we were beyond the days of 40s propaganda and Errol Flynn.

It did have its moments once the action calmed in the middle part of the film and events became clearer with more character interaction. But despite a number of good performances it was too late to emotionally involve me. What happened in Mogadishu seemed to be a tragedy, although I can’t explain why. Eighteen American soldiers died and over one thousand Somalians, and I can’t see why. Everyone here seems to have surrendered to war and their nobles cries of ‘leave no man behind’ come across as a futile attempt to succeed against the odds, without once questioning where those odds arose.

It would be impossible to call this a glorification of war, but it makes no clear effort to condemn, justify or even explain the conflict in Somalia. Ask yourself this. Did the film teach you anything new regarding war? Was there any moral message? Did it seriously affect your views towards war, whether in support or against? Or did you just wow at the big bangs, say how awful it is and go home for a nice dinner? I know I did.

Rated: 15
Running Time: 144 mins

On a lighter note, for anyone wondering what ‘Superbit’ means - It is a new type of digital encoding (double the normal bit rate), which optimizes the picture quality and provides DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. It comes from Sony Pictures and the DVD contains a booklet with more information. Basically it looks and sounds better if you have the hardware to show it off.