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Review: Black Hawk Down
The movie, directed by Ridley Scott, stars Josh Hartnett, Sam Shepard and Tom Sizemore as various Army Rangers and Delta Force soldiers who found themselves under seige by thousands of enraged Somalians in a l993 battle that was the longest sustained firefight involving American troops since the Vietnam War. The soldiers were sent into Mogadishu, the Somalian capital, to capture a warlord and some of his aides.
The mission goes bad when one Black Hawk helicopter, then a second, are shot down by rocket-grenade firing members of a Somalia militia. The Army Ranger motto is "Leave No Man Behind," and they aren't kidding. Even though they captured the people they were looking for, the Rangers and Delta Force soldiers wouldn't leave the area until the bodies were recovered from the Black Hawks, even after it was clear the pilots were dead. The crash scenes brought tens of thousands of heavily-armed militia running, and the U.S. soldiers spend a horrific night under seige. Even though the warlord's aides were captured, what most Americans saw the next day on TV were horrifying images of U.S. soldiers' bodies being dragged naked through Somalian streets by joyous throngs.
The U.S. was initially involved in Somalia to stop the country's warlords from looting humanitarian aid meant for victims of one of the century's worst famines. But the American role there drifted into something else without much public consciousness or, apparently, strategic thinking. Somalia, along with the Bosnian conflicts, taught the American military once again that soldiers shouldn't be sent anywhere unless goals are clearly defined and there is a willingness to pursue the conflict to some conclusion even if there are casualties. Many military analysts say this shadow persisted over the U.S. Armed Forces until September 11.
The American Somalia mission -- clear at first -- degenerated into policing and warlord-busting, and nobody in or outside of the film can really explain why 19 U.S. soldiers gave up their lives. The U.S. mission there was abruptly ended by President Clinton two weeks after the bloody confrontation involving some of America's most elite troopers. More than 1,000 Somalians were killed in the brutal firefight.
Like the best-selling non-fiction book by Mark Bowden on which the movie was based, the film simply tells this astonishing, sad and grisly story. It's almost completely unadorned by speechifying, peripheral love interests and character development, or other Hollywood BS.
As was the case in HBO's Band of Brothers, there is no single star around which the movie flows, apart perhaps from Hartnett, who plays a Ranger sergeant promoted hours before the battle. The shooting is so fast and furious that most of the U.S. soldiers do blend together. There's so much blood, dust and darkness it's almost impossible to tell many apart for much of the movie. Some find that a weakness, but it seemed a strength to me. There is some truly mind-boggling -- and according to Bowden's book -- real heroism in this story, and it is genuinely moving. The Delta Force members in particular come across almost as almost mythic cartoon superheroes, but according to Bowden and the soldiers present their heroism and, in some cases, suicidal sacrifice, really did happen.
It's impossible to view this movie without thinking of Afghanistan, if for no other reason than the two conflicts seem so jarringly different. Somalia threw U.S. soldiers into a civil quagmire without any sense of what victory even meant. In some ways, our involvement in Afghanistan has a clear moral justification and purpose, but is a Drone War, conducted mostly by airplanes with the help of some small numbers of ground forces. In a way, Afghanistan suggests that the kind of heroism, sacrifice and bloody combat depicted in Black Hawk Down is a thing of the past. Today, a few members of Delta force would probably be squirreled away in some of Mogadishu's apartment buildings, directing laser-guided bombs.
This movie is visually rich, capturing the surreal atmosphere of Somalia in 1993, and the almost numbing carnage, bombing and confusion. The action sequences are very well done and harrowing. Some of the critics are complaining that the audience will feel as if it were under seige. I sure did. But to me, that was the beauty of the film.
non-ficton story? Anyways, I take some offense at the "ignorant citizenry" bit. Am I to educate myself on every fucking thing the gov't does? This is a hallmark of American society. We, at least what appears to me to be a large majority, trust our gov't to do the right things. Everyone knows there are dishonest assholes out there that are going to do bad/illegal things but over we trust them to get it right. Like anything else, this goes in cycles - one might consider the cycle from Vietnam to 9/11 to such a cycle. In any event, I just hope the whole movie isn't that same washed-out hue that Saving Private Ryan was...
The men who fought on the ground that day didn't give a lick about the politics that put them there. To many of them, it was the opportunity of a lifetime; to add to the history of what being a Ranger has meant throughout history. The movie skimmed the surface of it, but it can't really be well understood by those who have never been there. I have not read Mr. Chomsky's work, but I'm confident that his concerns where not shared by the men who were under the gun that day.
From what it looked like the movie accomplished its objective, capture the fast pace of urban combat and convey it to the audience. The lack of character development is a statement about the lack of being able to focus on anything in a fast unfolding situation. It was enough to get out alive for those who were combatants. I doubt they had time to focus on much of anything, except a narrow field of view in which an enemy might suddenly appear to take your life, or the life of the man next to you.
Oil, politics, power, corporate greed. BS.
Mission Accomplishment, Honor, the Creed.
BTW - For the Record - it's "I Will Never Leave Behind a Fallen Comrade".
This film is a factual account of what happened, it ties in with the interviews of the soldiers I've seen. Not all opinions are equal, some people are just plain wrong, and the people calling this American propaganda, or calling the mission in Somalia American Imperialism are simply wrong. The fact that they disagree with the story doesn't make the movie propagada, it makes them wrong.
The preamble at the beginning really skimps on the politics, this is not a film about the politics of Somalia or about the humanitarian mission turned hunt for Aidid. The film is almost entirely about the events and firefights directly related to the mission to capture Aidid & his top officials. It doesn't glamorize the mission or the US role. People calling this propaganda are the same fools who think a U.N. humanitarian mission in some East African country nobody has any aspirations towards is somehow American imperialism, they are fools, no other word fits them as well. They should get better informed and perhaps even see the movie before passing judgement.
The reason Aidid was declared an enemy was a massacre of Pakistani UN troops, the film even mentions this very briefly in the preamble.
Mr. Katz's review seems to follow the government approved propaganda.. Here is a story from "The Independant", a London newspaper, with a different take on the events in Somalia:
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http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=1140
If that's so, then it should be easy to provide evidence to the contrary. That's how it works.
He buys into and furthers the position of radical left wing organizations that a) accept moral relativism as a guiding principle
So he buys into things you don't believe in? Furthermore, he associates with the left wing? That MUST be a dead giveaway of a person you should not believe.
I buy into moral relativism as my life's guiding principle and I'm left-leaning in my political affilitations. I find it insulting that you'd ignore my arguments based on knowing all that.
I saw the movie the day it was released nation wide. I have a few observations about your comments.
The movie does have a few flaws. Big deal. All movies do. The simple fact is that this movie has relatively few, which in my book, is a good thing.
As for all of you bitching about the reason the US was in Somalia. Get over it. This movie wasn't meant to address the political agenda that took the Rangers and Delta operatives into Somalia. It was meant to tell the story of the battle that took the lives of 18 US soldiers and countless Somalian militia and civilians.
In case you people haven't noticed, soldiers don't choose the places they go, the missions they do, or the reasons why they do them. Their job is one simple task. Get it done.
For the rest of you bringing up issues about the potential for racism in a primarily white elite military unit, and the poor judgment of a US soldier with an under age Somali, all I have to say is that again, these things are not within the scope of the movie. Do you really want to sit through a six hour movie so that all of these little before and after details can be brought out? I don't. I guess the only thing I can say to you is read the news. Then you'll hear all of these things.
Bottom line? It was a good movie, some Hollywood license was taken, but overall I liked it.
Those of you who want to read the real story (it was not told in US) Short summary: Read this
Dyslexics have more fnu.
What could they expect? Perhaps they expected to live their lives without being invaded by the US, ie. without ever being put in a position where they needed to attack US soldiers.
The US force was invading their country. Check a map - Somalia is not part of the US. What were US troops doing there? What result would you expect, if foreign troops landed next to where you lived? I would expect the armed forces of my country, and probably me as well, to fight against the invaders.
Cheers,
Ian
It's a cultural thing I guess, but most civilized cultures (and even most great ancient ones) consider hiding behind women and children as cowardly.
You could argue that being suicidal in the face of a highly technologically superior opponent could be argued as a brave tactic or not, but women and children shields ?
- sigs are for wimps.
"And Slawomir Idzik's lighting was great at times, but he also shot African faces as if they were Orcs from Lord of the Rings, bringing out extreme blackness as if it were an indication of evil."
Have you ever seen regular pictures and photos of the natives of the area? They really are that dark. It wasn't a portrayal of evil. It was showing them factually. They tend to be that dark because of the omnipresent sun.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
sure that you are a fool. Look to the history of Iran, for example. Regarded in the 1950s as an enlightened, prosperous country which had the misfortune to ELECT a president that nationalised their oil industry taking control from the American companies that were taking the oil and paying no tax or reparations for doing so apart from a one time 'prospecting license'. Cue the US funded overthrow of the govenment and the installation of a US friendly Shah who brutally repressed the freedoms you seem to hold so dear, growing fat and wealthy while the standard of living for the iranian on the street plummeted. leading to a popular but tragic overthrow of the regime by a clerical theocracy and ... do you even know the rest of the story? The old US embassy in Tehran is now the 'Museum of Arrogance'. Which is what Americans _are_. The list of crimes committed so you can fill your Lincon Towncar up at the pump for less than the car cost is immeasurable.
Self rightiousness is easy when you are _right_.
Can you name one democratic regime that was put in place in any of the countries 15 that the US has attacked directly in the past 30 years?
Ignorance is bliss, until somebody flies a jetplane into your pretty little towers.....