Almost completely action oriented war movie with amazing camera work but little elements which go beyond immediate battleground

Rating: 7/10 (7 October 2016)

I've almost forgotten how patriotic Americans are before seeing Black Hawk Down again. There's almost no scene where natives are being portrayed as human beings. And that's my main concern with this movie. I think real war horror would have felt much better if killings of all those thousands and thousand of natives brought more emotion. Instead, this movie has a great replay-ability because it's fun and cool. Other than that, everything else is very fine; be it production, sound design, effects etc. I have to mention amazingly done camera work; camera is very dynamic and shaky hence putting you straight into the combat. Bad camera work was my main problem with David Ayer's Fury. So to conclude the first part: this movie is not similar to Schindler's List, but is more like Saving Private Ryan with almost non-stop action.
Let me remind you that Ridley Scot produced Blade Runner (1982) and directed Alien (1979). Blade Runner was nominated for special effects and Alien won one for special effects. It's no wonder than that BHD feels so great and fast paced. If only I had seen it in the cinema! Acting performance was convincing and solid be it American soldiers or Somali people. In my opinion latter ones out-casted American soldiers. Their role was to play savages and they did a great job. And no matter what other claim, this dichotomy of savage-soldier is pretty obvious.
I think directing and producing war movies is the toughest of all genres. Here you stand in front of a phenomenon which is much larger than anything else one person can comprehend. All those tears and pains, angers and reliefs, all those "quite human" reactions and behavior has to somehow be presented to a viewer. I don't think BHD does that very good. I love, for example, scenes where American soldiers joke around in their base just before leaving for battleground. But this alone is just not enough. There's a scene where and old man bears a dead child in his arms in the territory where bullets fly around. All those attempts to present real war horror where overshadowed with focusing to much attention on one side only. Yes, I know plot was written to tell a story about those 123 American soldiers who had to fight someone else's war, but ten minutes would've been enough to make this much more emotional movie.
In conclusion: if you're in for a lot of action accompanied by amazing camera work that will make you feel like a comrade, you won't find few movies as good as BHD. If you're looking for true war horror which goes beyond battleground, look for something else.