A lot of potential, but it gets lost

Rating: 8/10 (30 December 2002)

The battle of Mogadishu was in some respects America's Roarks' Drift. A handful of soldiers are trapped and surrounded by overwhelming numbers of enraged locals. In the case of Roarks' drift, the locals were Zuli wariors, fresh from slaughtering a British army at Ishwandla. Against them were a tiny group of British soldiers. Yet against the odds the British held off the Zulus and most of them survived.
Roarks' drift was, of course, made into the fantastic film "Zulu" with Michael Cain and Stanley Baker as the two mis-matched lieutenants in charge of the impossible task of defending the British position. "Black Hawk Down" could have been a great retelling of this classic--reflecting both the heroism of the soldiers and the uncomfortable links between British colonialism and modern "nation building." Sadly, Scott opts to stay as close to the events of the real battle as possible. This means flooding the audience with a confusing array of soldiers from several distinct organizations. I didn't understand it all until I read the book. Even then it took many viewings to get everyone straight.
Scott should have taken more liberties with reality if he wanted to make a great film. There are many great potential conflicts in the story, but none are expanded upon. Scott should have focused on two or three main characters and used their conflict to tell the larger story.

But, as it is, "Black Hawk Down" is a fine war film, especially if you can watch it several times with the book in hand. It gets high marks for using the actual sound of the weapons in quesion, from the big fifties of the Technicals to the SAW's and M-16A2's. This may have upset some in the audience, but it improves the film in my opinion. Firearms should sound like firearms, not like some bizarre combination of cannons and .38 Special blanks. The combat scenes also get high marks in my book. They are nasty and brutal. When the first soldier gets hit in the head, he falls like a dead piece of meat. It hits home. The rest of the fatalities follow reality pretty closely, down to a severed thumb and a live RPG stuck in a body. This is how combat should be shown.