Review: Black Hawk Down

Some critics have dissed Black Hawk Down as yet another Jerry Bruckheimer shoot-'em-up crammed with explosions and square-jawed heroes. I disagree. I think Black Hawk Down is an amazing movie. This story is no cartoon. It's true, which gives it enormous punch -- and it's a hell of a story. The kind of camaradarie and loyalty depicted in this movie is unknown to all but a handful of people in the world. The intensity of the battle sequences is jarring and disturbing. Black Hawk Down is a political movie about what happens when dumbass politicians and an ignorant citizenry send people off to die for no good reason anybody can think of (unlike Afghanistan). It also shows us, as military historians and soldiers have argued for centuries, why soldiers fight: for their pals, even in the most pointless of causes. For me, this movie makes Saving Private Ryan look like a TV special. Spoilage warning: plot discussed, not ending.

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.

Comments

You're reading too much into this...

[TheLinuxWarrior]

First, let me preface this by saying that I was a member of the United States Army for 11 years, and a member of an elite unit within that organization for my last 6. Some of my friends were in this battle.

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.

The story not told in US

[notany]

Those of you who want to read the real story (it was not told in US) Short summary: Read this

Re:Blackhawk Down = Bullshit

[mccalli]

...left wing rhetoric about how much we should care about how many thousands of Somalis died (who were trying to kill US soldiers, and therefore got the logical result they could have expected).

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

Women & Children shields not cowardly ?!?!?!?

[Augusto]

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 ?