$2.50 Reviews: Black Hawk Down (2001)

[Sampsa]

It was nice movie indeed and Zimmermans J'Attends is still on my playlist.

 

[redisforever]

But for the character development that we did get, who was your favorite? Mine was Grimes. He actually had me laughing a few times.

Yes, Grimes was my favorite, because he seemed human, and I guess he represented American peoples reaction to wars. Ironic, as he's played by a Scotsman.

"Yeah! Lets go to war!"
And then, when they get there...

"Oh. Umm..."

Also, he was played by Ewan Mcgregor. I have a man crush on him.

 

[Raven's Nest]

I'm not a fan of excessive action movies (like this movie sounds like) but I guess it's better than the type of movies you described in the first paragraph.

I hope there is a little bit of character development or identification...I might watch it if I see it on the Foxtel movie channels again.

This is a war movie not a stereotypical action flick. Actually i'd be close to calling it a feature length documentary. There is a decent amount of identification for the characters as they are established and re-established throughout the film but when shit its the fan in mogadishu, it can be a little hard keeping track of who is who. Aside from the odd RPG explosion there isn't much in the way of gratuitous violence. Every incident is proportionate to what you'd expect in this kind of conflict scenario.

It's one of my favourite films of all time and certainly one of the most modest films I've seen when it comes to portraying US soldiers in a real world conflict.

Snippage

Totally with you on the soundtrack! Hans Zimmer did a remarkable job with this film and the music enhances the emotional impact of almost every scene that features music.

In truth, I think your review focused a little too much on the characters (for a film where characters aren't particularly prominent). There is a lot of credit due to this film in my opinion. Particularly to the cinematography crew, the special and visual effects teams and the actors themselves. Oh and the sound crew did a great job, the movie sounds incredible on Blu-Ray through it's Dolby TrueHD audio track (best I've heard yet).

Josh Hartnett gives us our likable go-to guy for objectivity in the film and pulls off his role as a leader very well. Eric Bana does a good job showing us the difference in mentality between the Delta Force and Rangers without coming across as a complete prick which is an achievement in it's own right. Ewan Mcgregor, Tom Sizemore and the ever reliable (oh it's that guy!) William Fichtner turn in well rounded performances. I'd also give props to the pilot character but I don't know his name.

I thought the film was beautifully shot in both day and night time settings which is rare for a D.O.P to be really proficient at both. This makes the scenes genuinely intense and claustrophobic, granting the audience a more realistic perspective on block to block urban warfare.

I think the films core strengths come from the story itself. As far as I'm aware, Ridley Scott didn't take any major liberties with the events of the actual conflict. Despite presenting a one sided perspective, he does a good job of presenting the situation as dire (referring to the civil war), giving the military situation a good dose of pertinence.

It's not easy to shoot a war film like this and avoid the kinds of story telling cliches common to the genre. Part of this is due to the fact that real soldiers fought in this scenario and many were on hand to present their stories to the actors who really appear to respect them and what they went through enough to really pull of convincing performances as soldiers. I spent a year with the UK Armed Forces and it's a well respected film amongst their community.

Anyway I'm glad you liked it and thanks for posting a good review of it.

 

[Logarithmic Limbo]

In fact, that one scene

Spoiler

when that kid shot his father because the soldier crouched

was really stupid.

Apart from that it apparently went down that way, i.e the soldier slipped, I think the main reason that sequence being included was to illustrate the randomness of combat. You dodge left instead of right, and your friend next to you gets popped instead of you, basically "shit happens".