Black Hawk Down (2001)

 

Black Hawk Down is pretty unsparing in its depiction of the brutalities of war. There’s a lot of death and a lot of gore and a lot of blood in this movie, which was based on a particularly terrible day in Mogadishu in 1993. The American military attempts to capture and/or kill a warlord who’s decided to call himself the president during the Somali Civil War, and one bad, horrible thing after another happens. A helicopter crashes after being damaged in battle, another is shot down by a rocket grenade, a new soldier falls from a helicopter – it’s just a series of disasters. Troops are sent to rescue the survivors from the helicopter crashes, but they face some very well-organized Somalis, who keep them from reaching the target locations. The film features lots of young actors, many of them quite talented, but no one gets much screen time. Perhaps it’s a reminder not to become too attached to someone in a war zone like this. Josh Hartnett is billed first as newly-in-command Staff Sergeant Matt Eversmann, but his is just one of many stories we witness, however briefly. Eric Bana is an enigmatic sniper, and he’s always intriguing when he pops up the screen. Blink, though, and you might miss performances by Hugh Dancy, Ioan Gruffudd, Tom Hardy, Orlando Bloom, Ty Burrell, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. The film, based on a true story, of course, seems to place the blame for the errors on bad leadership decisions. Sam Shepard plays Major General William F. Garrison, and he and the other leaders of the mission just don’t seem to want to listen to honest assessments of the situation; their decisions lead to a lot of dead and wounded in a single, disastrous day. There’s an old saying that all war films are anti-war films because if you truly and (somewhat) accurately portray what happens in wartime, viewers become more opposed to it. I’m not as familiar with the historical events surrounding the U.S. involvement in the Somali Civil War as I could or perhaps should be, and there has been some criticism of this film for its inaccuracies. (Why do people go to see fiction films expecting a history lesson?) Still, even if its accuracy is flawed, watching Black Hawk Down leaves the viewer wondering just how much the raid accomplished and if it was worth the cost in human lives. Director Ridley Scott and his crew deciding to place us in the midst of all of the death and destruction of wartime certainly seems to suggest that they think it wasn’t.

Oscar Wins: Best Film Editing and Best Sound

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Director (Ridley Scott) and Best Cinematography