War is hell

Rating: 10/10 (24 January 2002)

This film is more realistic than the tepid pictures that were produced in the Hollywood of World War II. You have to give credit to the director, Ridley Scott, to come out with a winning movie that is totally engrossing and that keeps you at the edge of your seat all the time. The only sad part is that we never get to know the feelings on the Somali people that battled the American power to the bitter end. So in that sense, this film is a one-sided account of what went on, told to us from the American viewpoint, which is well and good, but we never get to hear from the other side, except the short scene from one of the Somali warlord and General Garrison.

This film is released right smack at the height of the Afghanistan conflict in which Americans are facing "the evil enemy", according to our president. In the case of the Somalian involvement, it was supposedly to help the Somalis regain peace from the warlords that dominated the country. The parallel with the war in Afghanistan is somehow similar as we are still battling the same type of enemy in a divided country, dominated as was Somalia by warlords that are more interested in the domination of the poor and defenseless people than in achieving democracy and freedom for the people of the country.
What doesn't make sense at all is why didn't the Black Hawks attack from the air the thousands up in the roof, thus providing cover to the troops on the ground. In fact, the whole nature of the fighting is a bit of a puzzlement because if the intention was to kidnap the kingpins of the conflict, we only succeeded in putting our troops in harm's way and to have 19 men killed, when maybe they would have had a better chance if they had better cover from the same Black Hawks the enemy keep downing.
The cast is very good. I never did like Josh Hartnett, and frankly, he is not a good actor. He doesn't show any emotion. The rest of the cast is great with actors of the stature of Tom Sizemore, Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana, William Fitchner and the rest. As an ensemble they interact very well and you believe they are the people involved in the original conflict.
The gory details of war are realistically handled. The script by Ken Nolan serves the director very well even though, as pointed out at the beginning it's only one-sided, since the enemy then, as it is now is composed of people, as presented in the film, so horrible, they're very easy to hate.
In spite to these misgivings, the film is so fast paced that almost 2 hours and a half pass by so quickly, we don't even feel it's that long. Mr. Scott gives us here his own take of the Somalian conflict in very cinematic terms.