Review of Black Hawk Down (2001) by Ryan P — 11 Dec 2012

"Hoot": ''When I go home people'll ask me, "Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? What, you some kinda war junkie?" You know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand. They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, and that's it. That's all it is.''.

Ridley Scott's ''Black Hawk Down'' isn't perfect, but it's still one of the most gritty, harrowing and realistic depictions of war I've seen so far. From what I've read, people have mostly complained that it has shallow character development, but I don't think it was required. The events covered in this film have a time lapse of 15 hours, and the film tries its best to cover it all in 2 & 1/2 hours. If you want characterization of the effects of war, go watch a film that has a longer time lapse like ''Saving Private Ryan.'' Matter of fact, I was more impressed by the film's achievement of making me sympathize with the characters, not based on any individual storyline, but based on the brutality of their experiences. Somalis detested the film, which is understandable because nothing is ever really told from their POV. It's all partial in favour of the US soldiers. And as it regards the soldiers, you can hardly keep track of who's who; they all look practically the same with their low haircuts and uniform -- Wikipedia: ''The film features soldiers wearing helmets with their last names on them. Although this was an inaccuracy, Ridley Scott felt it was necessary to help the audience distinguish among the characters because "they all look the same once the uniforms are on".'' Clever idea, but I was still confused. The technical side of things are brilliant: uniformly great directing, editing, sound, OST (by that man again - Hans Zimmer), and battle sequences.

All in all, the great outweigh the not so great. It was a superb watch. Thumbs up!