Could Have Been Better

Rating: Null/10 (2 May 2004)

Ridley Scott has made some great films and made some bad films and Black Hawk Down is one of the bad ones. The fact that the film is an orgy of action disrupts the fact that there is actually no story to this. I suppose you could say that there doesn't really need to be a story because what happened was pretty straight forward and that was a bunch of American soldiers went into a city where they became surrounded and trapped. A lot of them died and it became a famous story. The thing is that Ridley Scott concentrated on bringing us an action packed film about an important story but didn't really give the cast the character development they are deserved. The cast was huge with Josh Harnett, Eric Bana, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore and a young pre Lord of the rings Orlando Bloom. None of them get the chance to shine unless they are all running from bullets and explosions. It is a touching film and is great to watch and look at as the cinematography and editing is excellent but it doesn't count for the point the story was not used enough to complete the film that it could have been. The film was shot straight after Hannibal wrapped up so it can only be explained that Black Hawk down suffered because Scott went from film to film in a matter of months.
It's a shame that films like this cannot become the Masterpieces they deserve to be.