Better than I had hoped.

Rating: 9/10 (19 January 2002)

1st I will not compare this to Saving Private Ryan, because you are dealing with 2 REALLY important issues here. Different wars all together, and the fact that Saving Private Ryan never happened, this did.

First I read the book and couldn't put it down. I was amazed and shocked by everything that these guys had been through and had to endure for 18 hours what was suppose to be a 1 or 2 hour mission. When I first heard that the movie was coming out my first reaction was to go to this web site and see who was directing it and see who was staring in it. I wasn't too thrilled to see that Jerry Bruckheimer was going to produce it. Most of his films have been nothing more than flash, no story line, good kick ass movies. but that is it. I didn't want to see this movie make light or glamorize what happened on Oct3-4th 1993, but rather keep the integrity of everything that happened, like the book had.

When the film came out several weeks before the rest of the country did in New York and L.A., I started to read some of the comments made. You can actually tell who read the book and who didn't. Those who didn't expected to see more action, didn't think that the Somalies came out of the woodwork like vermin ("right 235SCOPE"). Had they read the book they may have understood that most of the stuff that happened in the movie, even some of the funny comments, were in the book.

I have spent quite a few years in the military myself, so I have been there and done that, but my experiences don't EVEN pale in comparison to what hell the members of Task Force Ranger went through.
For people who have NOT read the book, or have not even been there don't judge this movie by the events of what happened or even how they happened. Judge it by the direction or the acting. I though the movie was awesome. I loved how it did keep the integrity of the book and didn't diminish the events of what happened. I will always remember the names of at least 2 of them. Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon were 2 members of Delta who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for going into almost certain death.

See the movie, decide for yourself, but remember...this did happen.