HAUNTING TRIGGERS OF HUMAN EMOTIONS IN ACTION...

Rating: Null/10 (19 January 2002)

SPOILERS... BEWARE!
What a haunting movie filled with an explosion of graphic realism! I've never been more traumatized with any other war movie since "Apocalypse Now." All the adrenaline-pumping feelings that came with the book flooded back on screen. This is not a movie about the politics of Somalia war, nor is it one that's meant to impress anyone with exhibits of sophisticated military gadgets and surveillance techniques. This is about a collective group of honorable men willing to die for their honor and for their buddies. Plato's words: `Only the dead have seen the end of war," at the beginning of the film, sums up the contents of this film and Evermann's final statement, at the end, confirms my expectations. This is the story about soldiers who are not out to try to be heroes, but end up doing things that make them heroic.

Two Black Hawk helicopters shot down; men trapped in a perilous city gone crazy. The Director has superbly captured the personal accounts of the dangers, frustrations, fear and grief of the soldiers on the s***ty Mogadishu battlefield. This movie provides an uncanny exhibit of distressing portrayal of human behavioral struggles, inherent and unpredictable. It's watching members of the US Rangers and of the Delta Force as if they were badly manipulated pieces on a chessboard. No organized moves only to be faced with surprised attacks! Most of the soldiers were very young men called to battlefield mission for their first time; many are from the Rangers infantry. Their implied well-planned task was to capture two of warlord Mohamed Aidid's high-ranking deputies. But they soon discovered that their real combat engagement was different from their routine training. Young men in their early twenties summoned to serve with cocky and arrogant members of the Delta troupe.
This movie is not about the soldiers' individual characteristics or traits; it's about it's about a team of men struggling for survival on a historically ill-fated day. Embattled young victims of erroneous circumstances! Clean-cut young men filled with optimism at the beginning but had to live through hell the moment they are dropped into the `Mog.' An hour's mission turned into 15 hours of helpless desperation. Commandos and Rangers at odds! Indeed, this is a movie that spells out their experience, confusion, fear, courage, bravery, convictions, loyalty and dignity. I watched in horror seeing the handful of Deltas plunging out of a convoy to get to a crashed chopper on foot. I gasped as I watched hands foraging into Sgt. Smith's cauterized pelvis to grab and clamp a retracted artery. I choked to see the splattered blood, guts, and body parts merging with mud. I grieved watching people shot and senseless deaths. Their fears were mine! Nineteen American soldiers, and hundreds of Somali men, women and children, killed as a result of one foreign policy gone disastrous and chaotic!

Ridley Scott has definitely succeeded in exhibiting the inhumane brutality faced by men at war. So much visual details to leave viewers with moment-by-moment accounted chronicle of the living nightmare for the men involved. The spectacular cinematic effects and moods combined with the astounding Hans Zimmer's eclectic music score certainly pump up a hellish atmoshere throughout the movie. I was entirely mesmerized and psychologically blown to bits as if my own body was being mutilated. Yep, I felt as if I was right in the heart of the battlefield, panicking and trying to stay alive throughout the two hours and twenty-five minutes of this film. Astounding and realistic camera shots and amazingly credible cast of acting talents! A phenomenal war film that focuses brilliantly on human emotions and spirit. it gets my A+ rating!