An virtually impossible job superbly executed.

Rating: Null/10 (25 August 2003)

I read Mark Bowden's written account of the events in Mogadishu some years ago and came to the conclusion that it was the most gripping and disturbing account of real live infantry combat I had ever read. The book has been read many times since.
When I heard a big budget Hollywood production was in the offering I was horrified - letting that monster loose on such a recent and sensitive event seemed a terrible prospect. With the film listed as a Bruckheimer production it got worse, this was a producer whose past efforts clearly showed that as long as he got big bucks and big bangs, everything else could go take a flying jump. Big bangs would obviously be needed, but so would a respectful and sensitive approach to a event that is still recent history. This could not be another Pearl Harbour.
I could not have been further wrong, and this may well be the finest war film I have ever seen. How Scott managed to rein in the usual Bruckheimer excesses I will never know. Even the usual Bruckheimer trade mark, that sickly sentimental patriotism that is so provocative to a non-US audience is, thankfully, largely absent.
The availability of US Rangers and the correct aviation assets from the 160th SOAR add greatly to the films authenticity, as does the location.

Obviously translating the events of that day into a film that a lay person in a cinema could follow, while still staying faithful to what actually happened and the confusion of infantry combat was going to be near impossible. Here is where the films makers have achieved that impossible goal, and comments from witnesses have endorsed that.
Critics have said the film does not follow the expected conventions of storytelling and characterization. I can only say that that is a great relief. To take such a well documented event, and make it into a piece of entertainment to fit the expectations of critics and viewers alike would have been an absolute disaster and for resisting that approach Bruckheimer and Scott must be applauded.
It is not a easy film to follow, and is all the better for it, but I believe that Black Hawk Down is perhaps arguably the finest war film I have seen.