Black Hawk Down 2001
This is one I really wanted to see last year and never got around to. I had heard a lot about it going in so my expectations were high. For once, even with high expectations, a movie delivered. I thought this was similar in some ways to the movie Traffic: it doesn’t take sides or try make a point, it just tells a story. A lot of people probably fault the movie for that, but the movie was about one operation and not about anything else. There was no love story (not even any women that I can think of), no evil guy selling out his own men, no unrealistic stunts or derring do.
Instead you see a bunch of men thrown into a bad situation that gets steadily worse, going from what amounted to a kidnapping to protecting two downed helicopters with hardly any resources against an enemy that outnumbers you a hundred to one. You also see some of the commanders and how difficult their job is. A soldier radios in for a med-evac after his group takes casualties, but the commanders say they can’t come in and rescue him because there’s too much enemy fire. Not real comforting.
The movie left me wanting a lot more and the DVD only satisfies that to a limited extent. I wanted to know the whole story and what they exaggerated and what they just had to make up. My feeling is they didn’t make up much of anything. The DVD has interviews with the cast and some of the advisors that helped make the movie. They confirm a lot of what happened and give it a little more context, but not to the degree that a DVD can (and should in this case). The DVD still needs an “Ultimate Edition” that has maps, character profiles, and a definitive documentary of what happened.
I have read some reviews that say this movie shows the futility of war. I don’t think so. The bad guys in this battle took enormous casualties against a better trained US force. The US achieved its objective and took the people it aimed to get, we just took more casualties than we ever intended. But that’s a part of war that no number of smart bombs and predator drones will change: people get killed. I think you can make the movie say just about anything you want. If you believe war is futile you will find support for it. If you think war is always terrible, you’ll see that too. If you think war is sometimes the only way to solve problems, you’ll see that too. What I thought it showed is that you never know what will happen and strength of character and the rest of your team are the only way you can make it through. It turns out that makes a great movie.
I’ll give it an A.
Owned on: UHD, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital