An effective but incomplete depiction

Rating: 6/10 (21 January 2002)

The following is more a critique about the film compared to the book, than a review. I give this film 3 stars and a thumbs up. This is what Pearl Harbour should've been like.
I'm sure people who read the book will react differently from those who didn't. The book is excellent in cranking out the many details that transpired, making the reader feel like they are right there. So many anecdotal events occurred, it seems strange that a 2 hour and 20 minute movie could not show them all, even though the actual event lasted a little over 12 hours. Most people have already seen `Saving Private Ryan'. We were all shocked by the brutal reality of battle, and the film deservedly got many Academy Award nominations. So this time around, when the blood splatters on the camera lense, it feels somewhat familiar. 'SPR' also worked because many of the cast were fresh faces, allowing us to see them as their characters, not as familiar actors.
In 'BHD', we see Tom Sizemore, Josh Hartnett, and others from Bruckheimer's 'Pearl Harbour'. That cast, along with the battle, is fresh in most people's minds (since it was mandatory that everyone see it). So this time around, we, the audience, feel like we've got combat experience going into this film. Also, Ewan McGregor, now quite familiar as a Jedi Master with a Scottish accent in `Star Wars', does a poor job with an American accent. One thing that both 'Private Ryan' and 'Pearl Harbour' did NOT have during their battle scenes was music. Without music, the battle scenes feel like documentary footage. With music, like in 'BHD', it pulls us out of the immediate surroundings, and reminds us that it is a movie. I was quite surprised how much of this non-stop battle was underscored with a Hans Zimmer soundtrack. Perhaps the decision to go heavy on the music was to pump up the patriotism, post 9/11.
All that said, `Black Hawk Down' is a smart, unflinching, realistic, and unapologetic film.
There are periods during the battle where events seem incoherent, which realistically depicts the confusion that really happened. But it stops short to show the whole story behind some of details on screen. Near the beginning of the film, we see a short clip of the film 'The Jerk', where Steve Martin is being shot at. The gunman misses and hits some cans. In the book, this scene is referred to later during the battle, where bullets are puncturing a piece of metal, demonstrating how poor a shot most of the Somali shooters were. `It's the cans! He hates the cans!' the soldier declares. It is a telling piece of humour that helps relay the sense of disbelief the Rangers had while it was happening. Many of them said it was like a movie.
Another such moment occurs when another Ranger stops when he sees a hand sitting on the ground. The movie literally stops when the soldier stops to pick up the hand and put it in his jacket, (I almost thought that something had gone wrong with the movie projector). We learn later in the book that the hand was matched up back to the soldier who lost it. Then there is Mike Durant, the most memorable part of the original incident in 1993. The book gives more detail about him being held captive and how he was eventually released. The movie merely supplies some post-script about his fate.
There is some obvious foreshadowing at the beginning of the film, and Capt. Steele, trying to corral his troops, goes against Hollywood type by showing his vulnerability. The movie doesn't quite effectively show the Delta troops' influence on the Ranger's behaviour. It is an important sub-context in the book. Delta soldiers are trained to be very independent, and the Rangers are trained to stick together and go by the book. My guess is that the Delta side of the story could not be told, since officially they are not allowed to reveal anything about themselves. This is unfortunate, because the movie could have done a better job in setting up the relationship between the Deltas and the Rangers. It would give more depth to the clash between Capt. Steele and the Deltas later in the film.
Those are my gripes, but everything else Ridley Scott does is right on. Scott said he wanted to show things how they really happened, good or bad. For that, this movie allows the good guys to do not-so-good things, and gives credence to the fact that the men in charge don't always make the right decisions. Other than the wall to wall music, the movie puts you right there, with very few of those glitzy TV commercial style shots that Bruckheimer is infamous for. I felt that futility and desperation of the lost convoy was less effective when the film jumped back and forth between them and the pinned down Rangers. The lost convoy, as it reads in the book, is a trip into pure hell, the reader wants to scream in horror as much as those that were there surely did. By cutting away from convoy, the audience gets a chance to escape, where there was no escape from the hail of bullets and RPG's in real life.
If you are trying to decide to see this film, it is up to you whether you can handle the graphic violence, and the somewhat one-sided point of view of the conflict. If you can, you will be rewarded with a gripping story, a thoughtful narrative, and 2 hours and 20 minutes of film that will never leave you bored. Few films have done that.