GOOD REALISTIC WAR FILM. Blame Bill Clinton for this fight.

Rating: 8/10 (10 March 2002)

When I saw "We Were Soldiers" I immediately compared it to this film. The most obvious difference is that "Black Hawk Down" was more of a straight action film depicting the hell of war, while "We Were Soldiers" made more of an effort to depict the human element - of the Americans, their wives, and even of the Vietnamese. Ridley Scott's purpose in making "Black Hawk Down" was clearly to show the utter chaos of the combat in Mogadishu, and in that he succeeded.
Although we may not know the human beings quite as well as we'd like, the audience can grasp the turmoil into which they were thrown - and that is a vivid though unstated indictment of Americasn leadership, and especially the pusillanimous Clinton administration that left them hanging without adequate backup, armor, or air support, even though these were requested.
Although Bill Clinton, and his then Sec. of Defense, Les Aspin, deserve much of the blame, the commander on the scene, Gen. Garrison, must accept some culpability also. He was depicted as having not bothered to even tell other Allied troops on the scene of the planned incursion into Mogadishu: the U.S. 10th Mountain Division, the Pakistanis, and others. No excuse for that. Clinton later bugged out while scape-goating Les Aspin. It is now revealed Osama Bin Laden was much encouraged by Clinton's cutting and running out of Somalia.
A good, realistic war film. And I give it credit for not opening up the can of worms that would be the politics of it all. Although perhaps an unstated message would be for the U.S. to be far more circumspect in where it goes in efforts to "help" those who neither want nor deserve help.