| Written by John Shea,
on 29-12-2001 08:00
|
Published in : Reviews, Movies |
It's hard to imagine taking one of the uglier incidents of recent years and making a movie about it. It's even harder to imagine making it a movie that doesn't become horribly depressing. That's exactly what director Ridley Scott does though. He makes a film that is somehow encouraging and uplifting while being about one of the bloodiest firefights on record.
 The first half hour or so of the movie sets the scene for us. US forces have been stationed in Somalia along with UN troops to maintain order. Warlords have been seizing humanitarian food shipments, preventing them from reaching the starving people who need it. Over 300,000 Somalians had died of starvation. The movie itself concerns a raid on Aidid's territory in the city of Mogadishu to capture several high ranking figures. Things quickly go badly for the Army Rangers and Delta Force troops sent in. Two blackhawk helicopters are shot down in separate parts of the city, causing the US forces to spread too thinly to try and protect their wounded. The last one hundred minutes of the film are pure combat as the the Americans attempt to fight their way out while under attack from thousands of Somalia militia.
Black Hawk Down is not a movie about individuals. Only a passing attempt is made to introduce individual figures in the story and that occurs in that first half hour. After that the troops are treated as a unit, with individual personalities vanishing in the need to carry out the mission. We get to know a few of the men, but not well. Josh Hartnett plays Staff Sergeant Matt Eversmann, who is suddenly forced into leading a unit into battle when the previous leader is downed with an illness. Ewan McGregor plays Company Clerk John Grimes, a desk jockey suddenly thrown in to combat by an injury in their company. All the actors do good work but this is not a film that really concerns itself with such things. The acting is mostly serving a purpose in allowing us to appreciate the professionalism of these soldiers. Take for example Tom Sizemore's character, Lt. Colonel Danny McKnight, who seems totally unfazed by explosions mere feet away and seems to consider getting shot an inconvenience to carrying out his job efficiently.
This is a film with other things in mind than getting to know characters. The point here is the combat. Ridley Scott's film is an all out effort to bring viewers right into the middle of urban combat. This is one of the most stunningly realistic war films of all time. Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan featured a pair of overwhelming battles that had previously set the standard for realistic combat footage. But Black Hawk Down however serves up almost two straight hours of possibly more convincing combat. It carries a visceral punch unlike anything I can ever recall. The viewer is plunged into the middle of the action with such authority that they will likely start to feel the urge to duck down behind the seat in front of them.
The movie doesn't really have a plot in the traditional sense. Instead the plot is found in the battle. The preparation leads to the insertion of troops which leads to mistakes and suddenly the bulk of the force is trapped and heavily outnumbered. The movie gives us a detailed look at what it took for those men to get from that point to the eventual conclusion. The men are separated and cut off from one another. Their air support is brought down, suddenly forcing the ground troops to move to protect the downed pilots. Quite a shift from a plan thought so easy that the men didn't bother to pack certain supplies like night scopes because they expected to be back home in an hour. This could have easily been a confusing mass of bullets and bombs that left the audience baffled but it tries to tell it as a story so we understand why the US forces do what they do.
The film comes out at a perfect time with US troops again abroad facing hostile territory in Afghanistan. The way it portrays the troops should warm the hearts of American audiences considerably and give them considerable pride as well. The honor, valor and loyalty displayed by these men is incredible. The film's tagline is "Leave No Man Behind" and that is very much true of the story. Great sacrifices are made to insure that nobody, not even the slain are left behind. It's a sentiment that should sit well with audiences and likely make its rather extreme levels of violence more palatable to a wide audience.
- John Shea
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