Black Hawk Down Reviews

Black Turkey Down..

This film is another shameless blunt implement in the war on terror. After 9/11 the US government sent a delegation to Hollywood to discuss funding and encouraging more films that paint American in a more heroic light. So we get noble slow mo's of US soldiers being shot trying to be all 'Saving Private Ryan'. The film is the complete opposite of 'Buffalo Soldiers'.

NOT voyeuristic

Horrific and terrifying violence, but this is not a slasher pic ... it's gritty realism serves as a graphic illustration of the difficulty of subduing a hostile population with US military might. Bush & Blair might have paused for thought a bit longer before committing themselves to Iraq if they had these images fresh in thier minds.

Scott keeps the tension and action moving, so that at the end you feel wrung out and drained.

I respect that this film is based on true events but this is a ridiculously bias version. I have always loved Ridley Scott as a director, but this is a blatant excuse to show the Americans as some kind of heros. We are made to feel very sad for the loss of the 19 Yank Soldiers but not about the 300,000 Somalians that had died during that period of genocide - I agree wholeheartedly with the comments of 'Gonzo Soul' that the Bush Administration decided they needed to use Hollywood to create some positive feelings about the US Army.....sorry, but we're not all that gullable! and yes - Watch Buffalo Soldiers instead!!!

Harsh

This is a harrowing depiction of the Mogadishu debacle that the US Army suffered a few years back. With a level of shocking violence to match Saving Private Ryan this movie packs a serious punch, but while things are seen entirely from the American viewpoint make sure you read the facts and information given at the end of the movie. The most shocking thing is the death ratio between the Somalis and the US forces.

Good film

Refreshing and honest take on an American war film. Gives the American reference FUBAR a new outlook. No Rambo or Casy Rybeck running in to save the day, shows confusion in conflict in true elements. Great Film.

Superb, mesmeric

Made before Sept 11th, this film broke new ground in its attempt to portray some of the unrelenting filth of combat. Of course, it can't get close to reality - what film can - but Ridley Scott's take on what was a dreadful screw up in Somalia deserves all the plaudits it gets. The action sequences are long, unglossed, and the violence has a fatiguing, wearing character as the hours of the battle tick by and the story unfolds (a '30 minute' operation stretches into days because of the arrogance and shortsightedness of US military planners). You come out not with a sense of the 'victory' of the US at all, but of the utter senselessness of the whole situation - a fiasco from start to finish. And the Somali casualities aren't ignored - it's simply that the director wished to make the (at the time - pre Iraq - rather new) point that the idea of the invicibility of the US was actually a fallacy. Only a British director could have done this. In a world inured (sadly) to African suffering, the most telling point from 'Black Hawk Down' was that the US too, with all it's miltary power, was vulnerable- that US soldiers could die in unexpected numbers just like anyone else if America believed its own myth. Tellingly, the film concludes with the withdrawal of the US. Prescient stuff.

No it's not entirely accurate (see the veterans commentary) and the portrayal of the UN as cack handed and slow is designed to play to US audiences. It is however a film with real power and depth which said something important just a few years ago. And you'll be held all the way through, because the peformances are first class.

Action junkie film

I have seen this twice now, at the cinema and at home. The fact that it is based on a true story does enhance for me but if it was pure fiction it would still work. For anybody who is a fan of the war action genre, this is a must. Having said that I would still recommend it non-war movie fans as it has a lot going for it.

For anyone who rents the 3 dvd set of black hawk down, you want to cancel either the disc 2 or bonus disc from your list as they are the same disc, as i have just found out when i put this disc on :(

Good but not nearly as good as book

Having read the book I can apreciate what a complicated story the director is trying to cover. The book is hundreds of pages long and is in effect only describing something that happened over about 12 hours. The film tries to capture some of these minute by minute accounts as described in the book, but just can not capture the whole atmosphere and personal aspects of all these individual soldiers. The main thing I felt was actually lacking in the film was the ammount of Somalies actually killed. I think they could have portrayed the shear volume of Somalies being shot down and the fact that many were in actual fact civilians fighting and not just soldiers. Otherwise it was a good effort at showing what a empty war the Americans were fighting for.

Gung ho rubbish

Its films like this that give yanks a bad name.Maybe thats good?

Gung-ho bull.