Review of Black Hawk Down (2001) by Andrew D — 29 Sep 2013

If you don't care about story and all you want is action, you'll love this. But if you like being able to tell characters apart, look elsewhere. It's racist propaganda - the Somalis are depicted as completely evil savages and the Americans are all heroes, despite Ewan McGregor's character being in prison for raping his daughter.

There's almost zero context provided for the mission and no attempt whatsoever to see things from the Somali's point-of-view. As visceral entertainment it's a 2.5 or 3 - the realistic, technically impressive staging of the action is exciting.

But as a supposedly factual recreation of true events, it's a 1.