Disappointing and badly written, but it's not all bad

Rating: 6/10 (30 January 2010)

I'm not a fan of Ridley Scott, I find he so often gets carried away with "projects" and makes them unnecessarily long and often they become boring. Black Hawk Down is no exception. It is too long. The character development is virtually non-existent, which considering the length of the film is inexcusable. Also, it means that I actually don't really care about the characters because I have no emotional connection with them whatsoever. So when it comes down to it the only way to identify the characters is to classify them as either American or Somali, which for me kind of defeats the humanist point that Scott was obviously trying to get across. On the other hand there are some good actors to look out for, Eric Bana, Josh Harnett, Ewan McGregor, Jason Isaacs and Orlando Bloom all make welcome appearances. The film does also make some interesting points about war, interesting given modern events and that it was made pre-9/11. In the end the film is good to watch for its nice visual effects and extremely gripping fight scenes. The film did grab me emotionally, but not because of the events that the characters found themselves in, more because of the situation that the Somali civilians found themselves in, something that the film didn't cover (which is fine because that's not what it's about). I think what I'm trying to say is that I didn't particularly connect with the characters, in what was an overly long film with drawn-out fight scenes that are well done, but frankly boring.