Black Hawk Down

I've rarely seen so selfless a collection of performances and, in a war movie, so general an absence of rhetoric or guff. [25 & 31 Dec 2001, p. 127]

Black Hawk turns nightmare into great cinema.

Absolutely harrowing, shocking in its sudden revelatory immediacy, and very, very well done, Black Hawk Down is one of the best depictions of the outright lunacy inherent to battle I have ever seen.

Though passionate, doesn't pity or flatter the rank and file.

Black Hawk Down, in the end, is a docudrama. But it's sensationally well done, and it opens up a battlefield that needed to be documented.

In the end, neither the appealing cast -- nor the force of Scott's stunning imagery is enough to make us understand why these men died.

Perhaps they truly believe war is an inescapable aspect of human life. If so, why make movies that rub our faces in its horror? If artists have no antidote to war's evil or insight into the suffering it brings, their motive in depicting it must be merely to sensationalize its terrors and make money from the morbid fascination it holds for audiences. We deserve better.

Not just a thoughtless quip-and-rip action blockbuster - decently memorable characters, precise tactical narrative, and a good amount of heart. And surprisingly, bridging the edge of my gore tolerance but not too overwhelmingly violent for me.

Ridley Scott's true-story-based "Black Hawk Down" is too broad for the picture. During a monotonous 2 hours, the so called 'realism' is seen in his never ending battlefield where the U.S gets all the respect and bad-ass deaths with last line memorable quotes spurring out from their tongues. BUT. I still give credit for his decision to portray a battle lost by the US. I think it's one of the first non-bias-tried movies.

A world is not a fashion show. Weapon should not show. Conflict usually ending not by game to show. But with the time of consciousness.

This film is based on an actual US military operation that went wrong and left several US military personnel surrounded by hostile forces in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. The film tries to portray the facts, but I do not know how faithful it was to them. Its likely that much of it has been subverted to emphasize the dramatic effect. It's a war movie, so it's full of intense fighting and fighting scenes. They are the strongest part of the movie, and were truly well made. Through these scenes, its very easy for the public to move to the scene and fight alongside the gi's. The major problem with this film is its inability to convey the lesson learned by the Americans in Somalia. The lesson is that America can not be the police of the world, and that it should not interfere in the internal problems of other countries lightly, as it did in Somalia (and other countries, usually with the worst consequences). The film never reflects on this either on the bad consequences of war, or from ill-thought military operations. It's just an excuse for a war movie with Americans dying and killing enemies like sparrows, which removes the film from any depth or meaning. If you had chosen to think about it, it could easily be compared to an "Apocalypse Now", for example. This iconic film speaks not only of the Vietnam War but also of how war affects all, winners and losers, for the worse. There is a profound message behind this film. There is no such thing here. It is a war movie that justifies itself, and loses quality with it. The film does not even dare to show the failure that was truly the American intervention in Somalia. At this point, it is simply advertisement. It is a propaganda piece to the heroism and blind patriotism of the Americans. The cast plays a fairly reasonable role, but with a script condemned at the start and highly partial, we can not expect miracles. The characters are very poorly developed, to the point that the public quickly loses the notion of who is who in the ray of the film. Losing that feeling is halfway to losing interest in what is happening. But as I said, the movie's strong point is action, and everything else was kind of relegated to the background by the production team. It's a good looking action movie or a movie that attempts to show real military combat. But compared to other war films, it's pretty primary, it gets boring and confusing, it does not appeal to everyone and it's easily forgettable.

A pure propaganda movie from Hollywood with no substance, context or theme. No doubt that it gives the military industrial complex a permanent hard-on. It's not only littered with factual errors starting with the very first quote which is wrongly attributed. Not to mention that there were other armies involved (Pakistan for example), who did the bulk of the work. It's a shame that so much money and starpower literally gets blown to shreds for this glorified commercial.