Blood, Sweat & Bullets: The New Story of GI Joe

Rating: 8/10 (8 April 2004)

The partly successful, partly disastrous 1993 mission in Somalia is recounted in a horrifyingly glorious storm of blood, sweat and bullets as American soldiers find themselves up against an entire city.

Hate to sound like a cheap ad, but director Ridley Scott (Blade Runner) has fashioned a war movie so powerful it leaves "Pearl Harbor" (which also starred Josh Hartnett) looking like a bad "GI Joe" cartoon. This is how a war movie should be: no romantic cliches of two soldier friends in love with the same woman, no flag waving glory crap, and no clearly drawn good guys or bad guys, even if our sympathies lie more with our own troops than the Somali war lords.
Anchoring the film is a strong cast that features Sam Shepard, Jason Isaacs, Tom Sizemore, William Fitchner, Josh Hartnett, Eric Bana (in the role that made him a star in American eyes), Ewan McGregor, and Orlando Bloom in a small but crucial role as the man who falls out of the helicopter. It's an ironic bit of casting, seeing as how Bloom himself broke his back in real life and his claim to fame is playing the sleek, cat like Legalos in "Lord of the Rings". Just an actual incident recreated flawlessly and featuring violence so raw and powerful that you'd swear you were there (the first time I saw this film I swore I could taste the heat of the desert). Rarely is the horror of war so well depicted.
This is also probably Josh Hartnett's best performance to date. He's not eye candy for the girls here, he's just playing a regular guy (who ironically was not that involved in the real incident). If he keeps this up, he might actually have a career worth remembering after his pretty boy looks have faded.
Take it slow with this one.