The US should have had a better strategy...

Rating: 8/10 (24 February 2002)

"Black Hawk Down" can be considered as a successor of "Saving Private Ryan", the Steven Spielberg production that changed the war genre movies. Following the "Saving Private Ryan" path, "Black Hawk Down" shows the audience the crude, non-heroical and believable war, and not the "Rambo"-type vengeance.

Ridley Scott is the director of this incredible production. Some of his previous films have enchanted the audience (Alien, Gladiator, 1942), other productions from him have become not so brilliant (G.I. Jane, Hannibal). But "Black Hawk Down" is that kind of films that absorb the audience deep in the action, incredibly recreating the US incursion that occured in Mogadiscio, 1993.
The first thing you notice when watching the film is the hugeness of the action. I can't understand how they did it to create a city scale war zone: the helicopters flying above all the city, the landings of the aircrafts, the hundreds and hundreds of extras... It's like combining the majesty of "Gladiator" and the action and drama of "Saving Private Ryan", which creates a brilliant masterpiece.
You'll find such veterans and rookie actors in the crew: Josh Harnett, Tom Sizemore (who seems to enjoy the war movies ^_^), Orlando Bloom (Legolas Greenleaf in the LOTR), Eric Bana and many more familiar faces. Plus also Ewan McGregor.
The plot is quite simple. The Delta Force and Marines plan the attack and they completely fail. I like this movie because of that: it shows the bad strategy and the bad coordination that the american army had in that conflict, and everything because they understimated the somalian forces.
The weak point of the film should be that in some parts, the patriotic and heroic vision of the war emerges from the reality which makes interesting "Black Hawk Down", I mean, Ridley Scott's production is more "holliwodish" than "Saving Private Ryan", because you have your blond-hair blue-eye handsome good troops and the bad to the bone somalian army. But I like the way US is ridiculed.
A great film that makes us remember the big mistake that the US forces did in Mogadiscio. Worth look! 10/10