Historical, but confusing

Rating: 7/10 (28 December 2002)

I know this post is long after the movie was released, but now that I have watched it a few more times and heard an actual account straight from Eversmann's mouth, I feel ready to post.
As for the historical accuracy of the movie, I thought it was rather good. This opinion was reinforced when I heard MSG Eversmann himself give a talk at my school, Johns Hopkins, where he now works in ROTC. Of course there were things that were embellished and Eversmann himself feels that he was given too much credit and occasionally put in a situation where he wasn't present (like the clamping the artery scene), but he thought that it was extremely good at portraying the intensity of a battle. If someone wants to know what modern day urban warfare is like, this would be an excellent reference. Eversmann also feels that the portrayal of the Somalis was accurate. Many were on drugs during the battle, and he can only guess at how many Somalis were killed by other Somalis (since their tactics often had them at ground level on opposite sides of the road shooting at Americans in the road). So for themost part, the movie was good at depicting the battle accurately.
As for the movie from a movie standpoint, I had some trouble with it. The first time I watched the movie I occasionally had difficulty figuring out who was who and where everyone was in relation to each other. I know that is just a side effect of the uniformity within the military and the complexity of the battle itself, but it was still a problem I had at first. It is always hard to put so much into a movie and I think this movie did as good a job as it could, but that still left me a little confused.
7/10