Gritty account of a messed up Somali mission.

Rating: 9/10 (6 February 2002)

Black Hawk Down presents the problems of the mission to Somalia and graphically portrays its consequences. Our mission to Somalia was to bring order and feed the hungry. That sounds great but we attempted to do that in the middle of a civil war. That was the same mistake we made in Vietnam. Black Hawk Down showed the consequences of that mistake.

I have to admit, I was expecting a long period of character building in this one as Bruckheimer and director Ridley Scott are in the habit of doing. Pearl Harbor is an example of this folly. It was so bad in Pearl Harbor it was a real distraction from the film. This was not the case in Black Hawk Down. There is about 30 minutes of character building so you know who they are, which is done along with some of the events that lead up to raid on the Olympic Hotel in Mogadishu. After that time, the remaining part of film was about the raid itself. How the raid started, how it went wrong and how our men got out.
The combat scenes were first rate. Realistic and graphic. I could find nothing wrong with the affects or the stunts. Everything seem realistic. The chaos the film projected is accurate and shows just how messed up and unorganized these raids can become when they go wrong. I have to admit, even though I did not agree that our soldiers were over there in Somalia, I was proud of them. I have also seen the commentaries from the soldiers that were actually there and found that the film stayed very close to their accounts. I could only find a few small variances. The film showed that our soldiers preformed very well and professionally in this battle. They showed they knew what they were doing. If you think about, our soldiers were out numbered nearly 100 to one. We only had about 150 men and a few choppers and the Somalis had more than 2000. The fact that only 19 of our were killed speaks well our the training our soldiers receive.

One the best parts of the film occurred after the first team returned to base with the prisoners they captured. One of soldiers said he did not want to go back in there. This scene shows the difference between bravery/courage, cowardice and out right foolishness. I have family members how have been in combat before, some in WWII and Vietnam. They all have said that "Bravery/courage, cowardice and foolishness all deal with fear. Fools have none and end up dead or getting others dead in the process. A coward is one who is afraid and runs away. A brave man/woman is one who is afraid, but goes anyway." This scene shows that clearly and I feel it is a point that needs to made.
Back Hawk Down is graphic and some of the scenes are not for the squeamish. Some people have made it comparable to Saving Private Ryan. In some aspects yes, but for the most part, no way! The presentation of Black Hawk Down is powerful and has a great deal of impact. However, it does not have impact that Saving Private Ryan did. I did not leave the theater shaken as I did with Saving Private Ryan. I left with a sense of pride of our soldiers that fought there. This one is not children as some of the scenes are very graphic.
Overall, nearly perfect and definitely worth your while (9 out of 10).