My Favourite Movies: Black Hawk Down

This is a little more up to date than my last fave but still old enough to have some perspective on it. Along with my love of Westerns I’m a big fan of decent thoughtful War Stories. War can, despite all the questionable aspects surrounding it, bring out the best (though more often the worst) in people. BHD – based on the excellent account of the battle by Mark Bowden – is an example of what happens when young men, who are singularly unprepared for what happened to them, are put through the meat grinder. Inevitably the movie is a very much cut-down version of real events. Several actual people are often moulded into a single actor and incidents are told in the wrong order, enhanced for dramatic effect or missed out all together. It often needs to be remembered that we are watching a Hollywood movie here and not a documentary about contemporary events. What we see on the screen is, first and foremost, for our entertainment. All war movies come in for criticism. No matter how realistic they try to be they can never truly show both the horror and the banality of war. No matter the sentiment they will, inevitably it seems, be accused of either glorifying conflict, promoting imperialism (either political or cultural) or of being – as this movie was – racist. Sometimes it would seem you just can’t win.

But I guess Ridley Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer (yes, him again) must have been doing something right as this film won a pair of Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Sound (now I can see why the DVD just said “Winner of 2 Oscars”) though it was at least nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Director. But what about the actual story? It takes place in Somalia in 1993 where a crushing civil war is tearing the country apart. The US decides (along with the UN) that enough is enough and sends in Delta Force and The Rangers to sort things out. The mission featured in the movie – and in far more detail in the book – is an attempt to capture senior members of the controlling militia. To that end helicopter forces drop in and start doing just that – but as everyone knows, no plan survives contact with the enemy. When a Black Hawk helicopter is shot down everything changes and the snatch becomes a rescue in hostile territory against incredible odds – with limited food, water and ammunition. Told that they would be away from their base for no more than a few hours many of the young soldiers didn’t take much of anything with them. Now trapped and running out of just about everything needed to survive they need to rely on each other to get through the night.

There are many outstanding performances in this film and I’ll highlight just a few. Josh Hartnett plays Sgt Eversmann who’s just been given his first command. Dedicated to keeping his men alive he finds the realities of combat almost too much to bear. Tom Sizemore played I think my favourite character Danny McKnight who walked across ever battlefield as if he was walking across a quiet beach or going for a stroll in his hometown. He seemed completely impervious to gunfire even when one bullet clipped his neck. Then there was Eric Banner as Hoot, a laconic member of Delta force who tries to teach Eversmann that no matter how hard he tries he can’t control events once the shooting starts.

Despite finding the last few minutes a little too ‘arty’ for my liking this was both an exciting and thoughtful modern war movie for the Call of Duty generation used to seeing US troops fighting and dying in 3^rd World countries. The combat was visceral, brutal and bloody. It certainly felt real – though I hope that I never find out just how accurately it was portrayed. Watching some of the mini-documentaries on the DVD I was amazed to discover just how much of the film was CGI. Things have certainly come a long way in putting the audience on the front line. If you’ve been put off watching this movie by some of the bad press it received on release in 2001 then don’t be. See it and make up your own mind. It certainly doesn’t glorify war and it most certainly isn’t racist.