Best movie I ever saw (minor spoilers)

Rating: 10/10 (4 February 2002)

Black Hawk Down is the best war movie and one of the best overall movies I've ever seen. This movie was excellent. Afterwards it leaves you with a bitter-sweet feeling: you've just seen American soldiers get beat up, torn apart and killed (not to mention the hundreds of Somalians that get killed), but the stories of all the individual soldiers make you feel good. Also, the American soldiers going through this are all in their late teens and early twenties. You get the idea from the movie that these were all people who signed up for the army to get some adventure, then you have to see them all go through hell. The greatest parts of this movie, is seeing all the young Americans get through all that they just went through and how they all overcome everything. That's what I really enjoyed besides all the action in this movie (which was really good too), such as seeing Brad Thomas (Tac Fitzgerald) say that he's afraid to go back out into the fight and he just doesn't want to go, then seeing Jeff Struecker (Brian Van Holt) tell him not to be afraid and that they need him and so on, and Thomas then decides he'll go and catches up with the departing humvees. Parts like that really made the movie good.
The cast was also really good too. I thought Josh Hartnett was great in this movie. He plays Matt Eversmann, another young soldier who was just given command of his own chalk (squad of men) right before their raid in Mogadishu. I also thought Ewan McGregor was good as the company clerk who has an obsession with coffee. Ewen Bremner and Tom Hardy provide the comic relief (those two get separated from their chalk and then roam the city by themselves looking for people). Tom Sizemore, Sam Shepard and William Fichtner all did good too. My favorite character was Norm "Hoot" Hooten (Eric Bana). I thought Eric Bana did an excellent job in this movie, playing the fearless and really cool Norm Hooten. He was really fun to watch.
So all in all, this movie was great. If you liked Saving Private Ryan, you'll love Black Hawk Down. I liked Saving Private Ryan because of the characters in that movie, and I liked Pearl Harbor because of the exciting ending, but I liked Black Hawk Down for the whole thing. It is very realistic and is a great story with a great ending. A 10 out of 10.