One of the greatest war movies of all time!

Rating: 10/10 (9 December 2012)

And one that should be shown to every cadet at Sandhurst/West Point.
Hard to know where to begin in praising this excellent film. The direction is terrific, the action sequences mind-blowing, the characterisations and acting very good, brilliant music, the list goes on. The gore is graphic yet never gratuitous. It is amazingly realistic, you really feel that you are in the heat of a genuine battle, right down to people being deafened by their own gunfire which always happens in real life but which I've never seen on screen before. No other film has ever captured the confusion and chaos of combat, the convoy getting lost because of the delay between the helicopters giving the directions and the convoy receiving them was the fatal flaw of the operation. The part where the helicopter commander begs the convoy to slow down so he can relay directions correctly whilst Colonel McKnight tells them they can't slow down because they're getting slaughtered is just the sort of thing you'd expect in real life. And the lesson here? Keep it simple! It's a thrill ride yet at the same time it's a thoughtful film, this isn't an exercise in US imperialism, the US (and UN's) intervention in Somalia must rate as one of the most altruistic and unselfish actions of all time, with the Cold War over Somalia was of no strategic importance to anyone and the military intervention purely humanitarian.
One thing that stands out is that this is perhaps the greatest example of the compromises inherent in film-making. Many of the characters are combined with other real life figures but otherwise you simply wouldn't be able to keep track of who was who, it would be a hundred stories in one. In real life everyone had shaven heads and wore the same headgear without their names on it but you had to have that for the audience to be able to recognise everyone. The film-makes pull off the remarkable feat of changing facts to aid the story-telling but keeping the integrity of the real events intact.
Favourite scene? The bit where Ranger Jamie Smith is badly wounded and the medic tells HQ that unless he gets evacuated immediately he's going to die. And General Garrison makes the decision that they've already had 2 choppers shot down and if they try a rescue they'll have a third and more casualties to deal with. His decision seals Smith's fate but you get the idea that it's unquestionably the right one. So often in films the top brass is portrayed as cold and unfeeling but here you realise why a General earns his pay
All told this is the war movie that sets the bar for all others.