Black Hawk Down
Sometimes even a real life military operation that wound up being completely botched can still make for a compelling war movie in that said film uses the opportunity to focus its thunder and glory on the values that American soldiers share with their sworn dedication to each other under the worst possible circumstances that they have found themselves in together. All one has to do is to just pick out that real life botched operation that led to our guys having to stick it out like the brothers in uniform that they are and that mess depicted here in this 2001 release happened to be the 1993 incursion into Somalia by U.S. Special Forces consisting of both Army Rangers and Delta Force units as mandated by the now disgraced and dishonored U.S. President Bill Clinton in order to show how âhumanitarianâ he was by using our troops to ârescueâ the displaced citizens of that wartorn country from the anarchy brought on by the warlords who ruled the region, most notably a General named Mohamed Farrah Aidid, a monstrous individual whom as one can imagine our troops never even got close to through no fault of their own, but rather because of the inept planning, underpreparedness and overall general underestimation by the commanding officers at the top of the food chain of just how viable a legitimate threat that both he and his men were, resulting in 19 American casualities during a mission that was simply meant to result in scooping up a handful of Aididâs deputies and bringing them back to base for interrogation all in a matter of about 30 minutes and as merely a preliminary operation before the big mission to capture Aidid himself, something that obviously never happened not only because of the massive loss of life, but also because after the mostly Somali civilian rank and file came at them with a barrage of rocket launchers and other high impact weapons that saw not one but two Black Hawk helicopters get brought down, the soldiers on the ground found themselves in a nightmarish battle of survival in which even those who lived were scarred immeasurably for life leading to the U.S. High Command deciding that this one just wasnât worth it after it literally turned into a two day condensed version of Vietnam itself, leaving Aidid (never depicted in the movie and for good reason) still mockingly in power in the aftermath. But the spark which director Ridley Scott found to achieve the film adaptation of this story was twofold, firstly to create the most accurate depiction of ground combat ever captured on film (he succeeded) and secondly to show just how our Armed Forces will stick together in the end even after having been seemingly abandoned by their commanding officers who sit in their headquarters and ponder just how badly they had fucked up the whole thing. To this extent, Scott assembled an extensive and prolific collection of actors to play the real life participants in this operation including Josh Hartnett (always quick with the teardrops in the emotional scenes), Ewan McGregor (playing the only fictional character in the movie since his real life counterpart would be convicted of child molesting leading to his characterâs name being changed), Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana (as the self appointed philosopher of the bunch), William Fichtner (an absolute bull stud who barely spends any of his screen time NOT fighting), Ewen Brenner, Sam Shepard, Kim Coates, Ron Eldard, Ioan Gruffudd, Tom Guiry, Jason Issacs, Zeljko Ivanek, Glenn Morshower, Jeremy Piven, Brandon Sexton III, Richard âBuddy Rivellâ Tyson (handily nailing the movieâs single greatest moment of heroism), Tom Hardy, Gregory Sporleder and even Orlando Bloom as a fresh faced new recruit. Scott weaves them all into the narrative during the opening character development scenes even as every single one of them had to realize that no acting awards were going to be handed out here since this is NOT a dialogue driven film nor is it built around any specific characters (even as Hartnett and his crying keep attempting to hijack it) and that point is driven home by the fact that almost all the attention it got on the awards circuit (including Ridleyâs Oscar nomination for Best Director) were centered on the technical merits of the film and little else, so the characters come off instead as being pretty ordinary types save for McGregorâs likable Grimes, pulled off of administrative duty at the last minute and sent into combat for which his real life convicted pedophile counterpart would win The Silver Star. However, the mission itself seems like a waste and a deliberate walking into of a major ambush (which only Sizemore seems to realize or at least is willing to speak up about it) but the wimpy general in charge (Shepard) apparently seems to think that the whole operation is so routine that most backup precautions are not necessary and his failure to properly act from his command center immediately after the first Black Hawk chopper went down is what resulted in the further unnecessary deaths that followed simply because he and the other masterminds involved didnât count on a full on assault from The Somalis who outnumbered our troops by the thousands and it was only after several more of our guys got killed over a two day period did they finally do the right thing and send in proper backup with UN tanks and appropriate air support that ended the battles and even allowed us plenty of time to recover the bodies of our fallen. And all over a couple of flunkies to the main warlord whom we never even captured (although his own death a few years later in an ambush was supposedly some kind of a âconsolationâ for our troubles). But thatâs where Ridley smartly shies away from the politics and focuses instead not only on the complete and utter chaos that these men are going through, but also in their determination to be there for each other in ways that their general wonât and try to make sure that nobody else gets killed for this particular pet cause of their current and corrupt President. Ridley strives here to make the combat sequences as real and visceral as possible within a cinematic format and also manages to do so continuously through nearly 2 hours of screentime to such an overwhelming degree that he almost succeeds in making the VIEWER wind up suffering a severe bout of PTSD. Small moments of heroism do emerge from the concept of these guys sticking together through this shitstorm including Sizemore riding his Humvee straight back into combat to finish the job of scooping up his men (even as the initial refusal of sending in medical aid results in more soldiers dying) and the two guys who give their lives protecting Eldardâs downed and wounded pilot (both of whom in real life were posthumously given the Medal Of Honor). But it was still clear that the commanders had no idea how to respond here if the situation started getting messy and out of hand or worse, our troops started to find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the opposition all of which of course wound up happening with the sheer quotient of bloody gore suffered by soldiers both killed and wounded (some of what is seen onscreen is almost too horrible to describe) all in the name of another country that couldnât seem to help itself so the unneeded sacrifice of those Americans who lost their lives due to having insufficient reinforcements more than anything else makes this a national disgrace that is hard to live down. But the actual conflict that was selected to portray the bond that these guys have is almost secondary to the moving portrayal of loyalty and honor that is on display here along with Ridley giving perhaps the most brutally honest depiction of war that cinema has ever achieved, regardless if it was during a conflict that never should have happenedâŚ
8/10