Well-made American propaganda

Rating: Null/10 (12 February 2002)

'Black Hawk Down', as with 'Hannibal', is extremely well-made. But do Ridley Scott's camera techniques and the advantages of digital-editing etc. make up for this hollow piece of American propaganda?...
That Scott uses US-military advisors says it all. How can Scott go on record as saying he was "without politics"? A similar comment is made by one of the faceless, characterless soldiers in the film- if you are without politics when it comes down to the actualities of confrontation- then why are you wearing a US-uniform and obeying US-directives? The film is terribly one-sided, the Somalians etc all go down in single bursts of fire- like a video game, CNN footage of smart-bombs and 'Total Recall'. The Americans die in lots of body horror gore, or medical pornography- such as the search for an arterial vein. One soldier has the bottom part of his body blown to smithereens, but still has time to say g'bye to his wife & kids, like a good American. Ditto the lingering death of the arterial bleeding guy (sorry, the characters aren't distinguished- apart from Euan McGregor's, who likes coffee)- who's final words are to his mother, to let her know he fougt as best as he could. This makes death into a banal, naive act- you may as well watch 40's WWII films or 'The Green Berets'.Not being American,I can't play the victim card and buy into the good-feeling offerred by jingoism. Why does the film want me to pretend to be naive & simplistic about the act of war? As with 'Behind Enemy Lines' & 'Collatoral Damage' we see the exploitation/meeting of mannichean demand post September 11th...That the 1000 or so Somalians are sidelined for the 18 dead Americans says it all- let's not forget the Americans were arming Sayid (the Yanks like to arm people like Noriega, Pol Pot, Bin Laden, those who committed the massacre in Srebeniza)at a point where he was losing power and that the Americans bombed peace talks between the warring factions, killing 54 people and uniting the Somalians against them in the process...This film is bizarre to watch in the light of recent anti-war films like 'The Thin Red Line' and 'Three Kings'. Moreso when you consider the anti-war sentiments of 'The Deer Hunter', 'Catch 22', 'MASH', 'Apocalypse Now!', 'Coming Home', 'Born on the 4th of July', 'Platoon', 'Salvador' etc. Or Kubrick's depiction of the machine-like Marine mentality in 'Full Metal Jacket'- which uses his blacker than any comedy. 'Black Hawk Down' expects us to take this tale of good-evil seriously; that the 1993 mission was in fact some sort of success? This film shares simplistic aspirations towards war, with the likes of 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'Schindler's List'. This may be positive towards getting an audience- but is dishonest to the actualities of war. This film is dangerous and insulting- do we really believe the versimiltude of on-screen carnage suggests anything relating to a truth? The film this most resembles, though without the ironic-subversive underscore, is 'Rambo: First Blood Part II'. John Rambo asks his mentor, "Do we get to win this time?". The answer with this film is a simple, forceful, with us or against us, "Yes Son!".