A gripping war film based on real events

Rating: 9/10 (11 May 2014)

In 1993 US Rangers based in the Somali capital Mogadishu launched an operation to capture the dominant warlord it went tragically wrong. This film tells the story of the men sent into hostile territory. When they get to their destination they learn that they aren't just fighting a few ill-disciplined insurgents but hundreds of well-armed enemy fighters. Things go from bad to worse when first one then a second of the Black Hawk helicopters supporting them are brought down by enemy fire. The soldiers head to secure the crash sites and wait for the rescue that could take quite a while.
This film was much better than I'd expected; the soldiers were not depicted as excessively gung-ho and even though there were a lot of 'main characters' enough time was spent with each to make us care about what happened to them. After introducing us to the characters and explaining what they are doing in Somalia the action starts and when it does it hardly lets up until the final scene. The action is filmed in an exciting way without being overly frenetic. The ensemble cast does a fine job making us believe in the characters. The film is almost two and a half hours long but it doesn't seem like it as the action is so engrossing. At times it is a bit gruelling as it doesn't shy away from showing us the casualties. It isn't without flaws though; at the very end we are told that during the operation in which nineteen US service personnel lost their lives over a thousand Somalis died yet during the film they are almost entirely depicted in an unsympathetic light at least there are a couple of scenes that depict innocents caught in the crossfire counter this. Overall though I found this film to be gripping and I cared about the characters; I'd certainly recommend it to fans of the genre or anybody interesting in the events of that time.