If you liked Saving Private Ryan, you'll go for this

Rating: Null/10 (18 January 2002)

Seeing as this film is based on real events, and real people, please remember these comments are made from a cinematography point of view by a person who's never seen combat, and god willing never will.

In the same way as monster movies hit a new level with Jurassic Park, War films did the same with Saving Private Ryan. I would put this film on a par with SPR, in other words both great films. Imagine the battle scene from SPR and make it about 2hrs long, add another 20 mins at the start to set the scene and you end up with Black Hawk Down. I don't know if it was just living in England at the time or what, but I don't really remember seeing much about the action it's based on, on the TV or in the papers, and if I hadn't heard it mentioned that it was based on a true story I don't think I would have known. Anyway to the film, it's the story of a group of Delta Force soldiers and US Rangers who are dropped by chopper into Mogadishu, (the capital of Somalia), with the aim of capturing the warlord's, Farrah Aidid's closest advisors, with the intention of shortening the civil war.
The plan is they go in with the cover of helicopter gunships and the larger Black Hawk choppers, which are to give cover while the troops are lowered to the ground.
In theory the aim is to get in and get out in about 30 mins, the building where the targets are located is highlighted by the driver of a car, so it seems a straightforward plan. However with the local melitia groups intent on shooting anything non indigenous, the plan starts to go wrong when a Black Hawk is shot down. The tropps are then put in the situation of trying to establish a perimeter around the downed aircraft whilst trying to remove the captives from the town. Futher complications are added when another Black Hawk, trying to give cover to the rapidly spreading soldiers, is also shot down.
The camera work is great, some hand held stuff, some Point of view with the soldiers and with the choppers, gives a feeling of the enormity of the task ahead of them. ie shots of crowds of locals heading for the fallen choppers with about 6 Rangers and Delta Force troops, trying to get there first and hold them off.
Although the character development is overlooked a bit, it's the sort of film where you don't really want 45 mins of the life story of each soldier, it's an action film, where the action kicks off about 20 mins into the film and doesn't stop. Still there are some good performances, from Tom Sizemore, Josh Hartnett, Sam Shepard and Ewan McGregor especially.

The film does a good job of showing what war is to most people, bloody, dangerous, noisy, quite often pointless and mostly done for no good reason other than some guy who's not in the action says it's a good idea. It makes you wonder what the soldiers who were there, think of it, given the hollywood penchant for artistic licence. It must have been a very hard film to actually bring to life, without re-writng history too much. Yes I know some cynics might say that's never stopped Hollywood before, given films like U-571, but to me Black Hawk Down is a great film, with great perfomances, with a story line made even more dramatic due the fact it actually happened. Being more contemporary than SPR it will no doubt have more of an impact on todays audiences, but young or old, whether you've seen combat or not, this film cannot fail to have an effect on you one way or the other.

Definatley worth a view, no matter what you think to war films.