A good action movie, a little war film .

Rating: Null/10 (23 January 2002)

I must say that I am a moviegoer and I usely hate brainless action movie. I am also a Ridley Scott's fan. I like Scott long before Gladiator. Blade Runner and Alien are just too of my favorite films of all time. I also like Thelma and Louise. The duellist is a good movie with stunning images, but his other films are not that good. Legend is so-so (but I want to see the director's cut with Jerry Goldsmith's music on DVD, what the hell is going on with this release ???), Someone To Watch Over Me has great acting, Black Rain is beautiffly stylised (but what a bad and cliche scenario), 1492 A Conquest of Paradise has great music and images (but how can the story of Christophe Colomb be boring like that ??? And sorry Ridley, your only miscast of all your directing career : Gerard Depardieu, you could have choose worst, but surely better). Whitesqual is too long and G.I. Jane is just too confusing. Hannibal represend well the book (but the book is not very good... so the film too, but at least I like it !). Gladiator was good, but could have been better.
Now Black Hawk Down. I wasn't expected mush when I heard that the producer was Jerry Bruckeimer who is the king at producing brainless action movie featuring bad actors (or at least baddly directed actors)! In fact I am please with the result. It is possibly the best movie produced by Bruckeimer of all his career, but that does not mean that BHD is a great movie ! It is a very well crafted action movie with little deep (very very little).
I find it a bit pretentious. It wants to be The Thin Red Line but it is far from it, exepted maybe for the cinematography, they are tie.
Technically the movie is good. The editing well done (Pietro Scallia does his best job in a Ridley Scott movie here). And the team Scott/Zimmer works marvellously again. Scott and Zimmer never use big loud music to underscore the visuals (like so much movies produced by Bruckeimer). It really a thing to avoid in a war movie (at least in modern war film).
The weak thing of the movie is that it miss the moral found in such films like Appocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Bridge on the River Kwai, etc... A bit too much patriotic, but the worst thing is that the Somalians are represented as the bad guy and nothing more ( but hey ! it is a Bruckeimer movie).
It is sad for Scott because he deserves recognition for his work behind the camera, but the problem is that a great director must also add dept in a film. Give a very good script to Scott and you have 95% of chance that you have a pretty good movie (Thelma and Louise) !