We should never have been there.

Rating: Null/10 (10 February 2003)

I thought this movie was courageous and unflinching. You are placed at the lowest level of the conflict as it unfolds, but the movie manages to remain impartial. By that I mean there is no St Crispin's Day-style speech hailing the righteousness of The Cause, not that we are not asked to care about soldiers. Is it pro-America? Pro-military? Racist? Does it focus too much on the American angle of the story? Does it glorify the American soldiers? No to all.

No defense is given, nor ever can be, for American troops having been there at all.

And yes, most of the soldiers are white, and the Somalis are unilaterally black. Well -- that's the way it happened. No wait! They should have cast a black helicopter pilot, a Latino machine gunner, and an Asian...something. Just figure out a way to write in an Asian, we need at least one Asian. We have whites, blacks, browns, we need a yellow. Oh, rats! We need an Indian! Okay, I think you see how I feel about that issue.
Admittedly, the story is told from an American point of view. When an American dies, we are with him. When a Somali dies, we move on immediately. There are three reasons for this. The style of filming gives the viewer the feeling of being a combat journalist operating with the American forces, thus we are given that point of view. Secondly, there were nineteen American casualties, juxtaposed with Somali casualties in the mid hundreds on that awful day. It would not be possible to treat each Somali casualty with the same level of detail. Thirdly, I DON'T CARE about anybody in this movie except my brothers! It's just a movie, but the characters depicted are real people, who really fought, really bled, and really died. When the shooting starts, all I care about is my brothers. And if one has to die, then I want to be there for him. That's what war is. The man next to you. That's why they fight. Our friends, brothers, sons, fathers, husbands.
The movie doesn't glorify the soldiers, it just tells what they did. And what they did was their job.
This movie never should have been made because the events it recreates never should have happened.
Looking for someone to blame for Blackhawk Down? The blame doesn't belong to Ridley Scott. It belongs to Bill Clinton.