A gritty and good acted war movie

Rating: 7/10 (25 March 2011)

Black Hawk Down, co-produced and directed by Ridley Scott, is based on a true story taking place in Somalia, Mogadishu in the early '90s. Elite forces were sent there to participate in a UN peacekeeping action and the task was to abduct two of Farrah Aidids, a Somalian warlord, lieutenants. But it proves more difficult than they previously had thought after two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down and in turn led to a fiasco, a failure that has devastating consequences. Starring as Eversmann is the well-known actor Josh Hartnett, from Lucky Number Slevin. Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan) plays Danny, a tough and fearless sergeant, and as the comic relief is Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting).
The actual script is based from a book by Mark Bowden, a soldier who wrote it while he was in Somalia and it explains partly of why we get to see the U.S. point of view, which to me tend to be somewhat patriotic in these cases. When the bullets whiz past helmets, and the grenades explodes in the battlefield, you feel very much that you are there without getting hit. Elite units stood side by side when hell broke loose, and together achieve their goal - to overthrow the dictator. The idea to leave someone on the battlefield did not exist, it was one for all - all for one.
From a realistic way the film works very well, like when guts and body parts fly off from bodies, but I am slightly hesitant about the way Somalis was portrayed. Were they really a faceless evil enemy through and through? I got the impression that Somalia was ruled by criminals, drug addicts, drug dealers and murderers. In one scene the Somalis attacks one of the helicopters and they looked like a horde of ants looking for their prey. If it was a Somali film instead, it would probably look quite different compared to this American bias. Sure, all the historical facts is not always easy to get in a reality-based film and I accept that.
Some scenes are very daring and are nicely assembled. The color has a mostly somber gray tone, and the barren, cold realism that the film shows is great executed. The war "only" lasted in hellish 15 hours resulting in 18 dead and 73 injured U.S. soldiers and hundreds of dead Somalis.