Some responses to our recent movie reviews have been pretty vehement in their opposition. To show we’re an equal opportunity newspaper, we give you the other side of the coin. This week, one person is in favour of Black Hawk Down, which was called “blatant propaganda” by another writer. Next week: The Count of Monte Cristo sucks!
Mike Brown
Ever since the success of Saving Private Ryan, Hollywood has been sending out WWII movies at a rate not seen since, well, WWII. The problem is that most of these new movies aren’t very good. In my mind, they’re not concerned with honouring the actual war heroes. Instead, they only wish to entertain through gratuitous violence.
Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down is much different from most of these sorry excuses for movies. It takes place in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993, when nearly 300,000 Somalis died of starvation, largely due to the unwillingness of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid to allow delivery of UN food shipments. The film’s focal point is a U.S.-led raid to capture two of Aidid’s top lieutenants, forcing Aidid out of power.
The fact that their plan sounded simple enough, yet ultimately failed, provides the perfect backdrop for this truly compelling modern war film.
This film has no big stars. Instead, it’s an ensemble piece with many fairly well-known actors (such as Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor and Sam Shepard) giving solid performances. But the acting is not the point of a film like this. The battle scenes which make up the entire last two thirds of the movie are what make this film stand out.
A big reason why these scenes are so realistic and entertaining is due to Ridley Scott. Generally, I don’t like the way Scott shoots action scenes. It’s difficult to tell what’s happening, since he tends to move the camera too much and uses extremely quick cuts. Yet he films these action scenes with great care by using longer takes than normal, making everything on screen comprehensible.
I especially liked the way in which he let the battle unfold to the audience. It’s not easy to keep a battle such as this organized. But Scott is able to show us every mistake made that day by cutting between the two army units (Delta Force and Army Rangers) and the Command Base where Maj. Gen. William F. Garrison (Sam Shepard) watches his plan result in the deaths of 18 American soldiers and hundreds of Somalian militants.
As soon as the film was over, there was no doubt in my mind this was one of the best war movies I’d ever seen.
And it’s not just because the action scenes were extremely entertaining. It also wisely stays away from American nationalism and sentimentality.
This film is smart enough to realize this battle was a tragedy and nothing less.
