For those who have not seen Black Hawk Down yet, I can assure you this is not a Pearl Harbor II. In fact, I'll think I'll just wipe Pearl Harbor from my memory. Some critics have said Black Hawk Down is another Jerry Bruckheimer (he produced) shoot-em-up crammed with explosions and square-jawed heroes. I disagree. I think BHD 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....

BHD is based on the true story of the battle of Mogadishu that took place on October 3rd 1993. What started as a textbook mission soon became a nightmare when two Blackhawk helicopters were shot down, and the soldiers found themselves separated and cut off as they attempted to rescue crash survivors and complete their mission. The film has many characters. Staff Sgt. Matt Eversmann, (Josh Hartnett), is the young soldier taking command of combat troops for the first time, Grimes (Ewan McGregor) is a soldier who has spent his time behind a desk making coffee and now gets to taste combat, Gen. William Garrison (Sam Shepard), is a leader who cares for his men but is pressured by the military brass to bring and end to the conflict, Lt. Colonel McKnight (Tom Sizemore), is a officer who gets things done and makes sure his men are taken care of. There are dozens more. I'll get back to the characters later.

The battle left 18 Soldiers dead, 73 wounded and hundreds of Somalians dead as the planned one-hour mission became a fifteen-hour standoff. Several city blocks of Somalians tried to kill the men and attempted to get the technology in the Blackhawks. By following the strict "leave no man behind" policy, the troops constantly re-entered dangerous areas, even when safely clear of the fighting in order to get their comrades back. I don't think I've ever experienced a war movie that puts you so inside an extreme combat situation, as does this film. I mean, you really feel as though you are running around in the streets of Somalia with these poor guys. The film starts off beautifully, with an almost artsy look at the beginning of it all, with unsure soldiers fooling around, playing Elvis tunes, cracking jokes, but it isn't long before the breathtaking aerial shots by Ridley Scott are turned into a nightmarish hour and a half of violence, blood, guts and loud gunfire.

But on the whole, even though I was interested in the story and engaged throughout, I felt very little for any of the characters, and could actually not tell some of them apart. Sure, Eric Bana was great, Josh Hartnett was solid in his part and Sam Shepard ingrained his role with great leadership, but many of the others were barely glanced over, and as much as I wanted to get into their stories, there was honestly too much gunplay and not enough exposition or dialogue between the film's characters to care. Then again, maybe that wasn't the film's intent. Maybe the filmmakers only wanted us to experience the full-blown reality of these types of situations, and if that was the case, well, I most certainly felt that!

There's a huge amount of violence in BHD. Once the first helicopter is down, its total all-out action all the way. Steaming bullet shells rain down as US choppers unload impressive amounts of ammo into Somalians, and brutal wounds aren't edited for cleanliness: a blinded driver gets a face full of broken glass and blood; a man gets cut in half like Bishop in Aliens; and a soldier has to perform hack-and-slash surgery on a colleague by sticking his hand into an open wound and digging around for a major artery.
When Ridley Scott was directing BHD, he wasn't interested in politics. He didn't want to argue about whether or not the US mission was ill-advised. His objective was pure, simple and relentless. Here are American soldiers at war. Here’s what they went through. Here’s how they lived and how they died.

So to finish I have to say this is quite possibly, the single greatest war movie ever. Yeah I know its a crazy thing to say, but thats how I feel. BHD doesn't glorify war. And that's all that matters. Sure, this isn't the first movie to not glorify war, but it did it in the best way. All in all, its a brilliant war movie that is almost guaranteed an Oscar. In my mind, war movies are great if they don't glorify war, because war is hell.

Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age