Violence, gore, art and racism.

Rating: 1/10 (19 January 2002)

I have seen this movie before it went on wide. "Black Hawk Down" represents a kind of non-stop violence that you'd expect from a real war. Based only on the artistic quality of the gore in this movie, I would have to vote that this movie exceeds what we saw in "Saving Private Ryan". But, that's where it stops. There is no art in the depiction of violence that engulfs the audience the moment the movie starts till the end.
Another point this movie misses, or ignores due to racism on the part of the original writer of the "Black Hawk Down" newspaper articles -- later a book --, was the amount of lives lost on the part of the innocent Somalians. Please understand, in this brief encounter, there were 18 odd American soldiers dead, and 500 (FIVE HUNDRED) Somalians militia and civilians KILLED (according to American-Somalian relationship Org -- as published on CNN). More than 1000 others were maimed. I find it hard to believe that anyone would ever want to make a movie glorifying this, and then completely forget the other side of the story.
Another thing that would stand out is the fact that this is a war of the white man against the black. The US soldiers (specially Rangers and spec ops) as dedicated here are white Americans (I found it odd that this was actually the case among the real Rangers). American soldiers were armed to the teeth, over six feet tall, with similar Aryan looks that made it almost impossible to follow the various soldiers (not that it matted, cause this was just about violence -- even though some of the acting was good). Another point I'd like to point out and point out in BOLD, is the fact that we've introduced a new racist word to depict Somalians, the "Sammies", I found it as offensive as "N*gger". This is plain tasteless. And just goes to show how clueless the average American film makers are.
The only redeeming features of this movie are, the good acting on parto of the almost unknown actors, and brilliant violence that would be more appropriate on another planet, against creatures that were not human (Thank you).
Furthermore, this movie represents all that is wrong with the American mentality. This movie is an excellent example of the reason why the rest of the world truly dislike America. This movie is an ugly gash on America, and I am not proud of saying this is a product of our culture. This movie almost justifies the violence that others inflict on us. I am saddened by how people might be influenced by movies such as this.
Two thumbs down.