Ridley Scott did his job

Rating: 10/10 (31 January 2002)

This movie only suffers when critics try to put it into a familiar category and then complain when it doesn't meet their criteria.
This is not historical fiction, people. Scott's only mistake was stating in the beginning: "BASED on a true story". As soon as audiences read that, they expect creative license, added romance, and every other signature hollywood device. I wish he had stated "this IS the true story". This isn't supposed to be Enemy at the Gates, Pearl Harbor, or Saving Private Ryan.

The most frequent criticism I'm reading is that there isn't sufficient story structure or character development. It's a pointless gripe. Plots and characters are developed to service the story and make a film compelling. The situation as it happened in 1993 is compelling enough. When I see a young pilot in a hostile alien world trapped in a wreck of a helicopter with an armed mob closing in on him, I don't need to know what suburb he came from to feel the horror. As for story structure, If the men who endured this ordeal say the movie captures the event (and many of them have) I, for one, don't want to argue. Fudging facts for a prettier plot outline seems like a bad trade-off to me.
spoilers:
Ridley Scott's point doesn't seem to be in providing the ultimate entertainment (although the movie certainly is gripping); he is not giving us a moral lesson on the realities of war (although audiences are bound to draw their own conclusions). He is giving us gritty, factual, "first-person" perspective of a recent news story in a way that only the cinema can.

I, at first thought it was strange that nothing was included about the Somalians dragging the dead captives through the streets. The director knew we had all seen that, and his purpose is to show us what television news cannot. Sure, the movie could have told us more in the way of historical background, but hey, this is the information age. We should be able to look that up. Ridley Scott told the story the way he wanted to, and it's a compelling story. One that every American (17 or older) should see.

9 out of 10.