Frighteningly Realistic Tale of Brave Men

Rating: 8/10 (13 June 2002)

Director Ridley Scott hits another home run with "Black Hawk Down". It is the story of a group of American Delta Force and Rangers sent into a hostile area of a Somalian city in October, 1993, to extract two senior officers of the dominant Somalian war lord. What seemed to be a cut and dried mission at first, goes horribly wrong when two of the Black Hawk helicopters are shot down. The mission then becomes one of survival from the hordes of angry and armed Somalis that attack them. "Let no man be left behind" is the basis on which the Americans operate.
I had the opportunity to see an A&E documentary called "Black Hawk Down: The True Story" before watching this film. The documentary used actual footage from the real attack and interviewed many of the surviving participants of the ill-fated raid. The film was amazingly true to the actual events and was true to the heroic actions of the vastly out numbered American force.
The special effects in the film are so realistic that you would swear that you were seeing the actual conflict. Scott also added to the realism by using an ensemble cast with no one actor being the star. It gave the feel of actual units of buddies looking out for each other at their own peril.
Josh Hartnett, Eric Buna, Ewan McGregor, William Fichtner and Tom Sizemore are among the soldiers under siege and Sam Shepard is the embattled American Commanding General. All performances give the feel of real soldiers in a real battle.
"Black Hawk Down" will surely go down as one of the most frighteningly realistic war movies ever made. A must see.