"Black Hawk Down" dodges all the potential schmaltz with a grit the historical event truly deserved.

Rating: 7/10 (10 July 2013)

It always surprises me how little Ridley Scott films I've seen. I guess with Alien and Blade Runner as firm favourites, I feel a little more knowledgeable on him than I should be. Black Hawk Down feels more like an exercise in technical skill than storytelling. With an assortment of celebrities and an abundance of characters, it never gets a chance nor tries to whittle them down and study them. But it's not concerned with these people beyond fleeting personality traits as the characters feel as if they come and go and you don't see them again. Perhaps they're simply used an excuse to show as much of the battle as they possibly can with three dozen perspectives. The film doesn't prepare you for what it's about to show. They say specifically, "we'll be home before dinnertime." What I didn't expect was the entire film thereafter devoted to the telling (or experience) of a nearly 24 hour battle. It's a deliberate assault on the senses, building on from what Saving Private Ryan's opening started with a constant clatter of bullets and blood gushing to the point where it feels like the movie within a movie "Nation's Pride" in Inglourious Basterds.
Although I can't really be one to judge, no film has truly displayed the chaos of war like this one. It highlights the vulnerability of man in a profoundly moving way as American soldiers are stripped and paraded around a crowd of Somalians. While the editing, sound, cinematography and production design are very impressive, it can get tiresome just watching combat and bloodshed without any clear development or feeling for specific characters. There's empathy, but there's no overwhelming emotional urges. While the first half hour focusing on the soldiers pre-battle feels like trivial conversation in place of set-up, it's clear these scenes were designed to be just as generalised as the Somalian civilians, with subtle parallels drawn to their treatment of order, food and the land. It has interesting pieces of symbolism, such as near the end where a Sergeant attempts to mop up blood from under an operating table and just smears it further, showing how intervention in war can't help. It's a directors film. And although lots of trimming in the middle, a greater resolution and payoff and actual character development could have made it greater, it dodges all the potential schmaltz with a grit the historical event truly deserved.
7/10