An excellent movie from Ridley Scott, terrific action that will blow you away, sound FX that are so good they won an Oscar award and a story based on true events, all of them make Black Hawk Down a very satisfying experience down movie history. The movie is full of future superstars of Hollywood like Eric Bana (Hulk, Troy), Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbor, 40 Days And 40 Nights), Orlando Bloom (Pirates Of The Caribbean series), Ewan McGregor (the new Star Wars trilogy), and Ioan Gruffudd (Fantastic Four series) to name a few. This, however, does not take anything away from Black Hawk Down. It is in fact a serious, gritty and unforgiving look at war and its consequences on humanity and is in fact without a major Hollywood star as its vehicle, at least when it was made. Based on true events that took place in Somalia in the year 1993 when the United States led United Nations sent in troops to restore peace in Somalia and for fair and even distribution of food grains to the natives subsequent to the death of 300,000 Somalis due to civil war, genocide and famine. Somalia itself has deteriorated into bloody civil war with rival warlords fighting for control and the capital Mogadishu is under the control of Mohamed Farrah Aidid who declares war on America and its allies. The Americans never to take things lying down send in United States Army Rangers and the Delta Force with special instructions to capture Mohamed Farrah Aidid. This was expected to take 3 weeks, but 6 weeks down the line the Special Forces were nowhere near to capturing Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Opportunity then presents itself to the Americans to capture two of Aidid’s top generals/advisors. Things go horribly wrong in this extraction mission when 2 Black Hawk helicopters are shot down and a 3rd has to return to base since it sustains damage. The ground forces of the Americans too face reverses and find themselves fighting heavily armed Somali militia and the entire city of Mogadishu itself. Other reinforcements from the Americans are sent in, but they find the entire city cordoned off and that the Somali militia has barricaded the crash sites and they are unable to find a way in and team up and rescue the Americans at both the Black Hawk crash sites and the other ground forces. How the Americans regroup and move in to guard the shot down Black Hawks and secure the area while awaiting reinforcements from the American base camp and how they go about achieving this against all odds and an entire city armed to its teeth with its own militia forms the rest of the story.
Director Ridley Scott comes up with a winner once again and you must begin to wonder how he manages so many (Alien, Blade Runner, Black Rain, Someone To Watch Over Me, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator), well one could go on I suppose! Direction is top notch and the performances overall are commendable. Josh Hartnett plays the sole voice of conscience about morality and doing the right thing. Eric Bana plays the tough guy who just wants to get on with the job since someone’s got to do it. The main lead in Black Hawk Down though is the relentless and breathtaking action sequences that are pictured brutally and stunningly to say the least. The sound FX in Black Hawk Down are in an altogether different league of their own and even won an Oscar for Best Sound in the year 2002.
Of note though, Black Hawk Down is not for the squeamish or the faint at heart. There are pretty graphic images of starving Somalis, a United States soldier picks up a severed hand and bags it, and in a pretty gruesome shot a United States soldier is forced to reach inside another wounded soldier and pull out a bleeding artery to ligate it, all without any painkiller or morphine to aid him and without the right or even adequate equipment to work with. Once the action begins there is no stopping it and it continues on till the very end and it is pretty gruesome especially with the United States soldiers outnumbered and surrounded by the entire city of Mogadishu who come down on the hapless and stranded soldiers in droves. At the end of it though, Black Hawk Down still boils down to a story of hope and faith and how humanity can overcome its worst, it is just told from the standpoint of United States soldiers, but told very well indeed. Black Hawk Down is worth a watch just for the stupendous action sequences.
