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Black Hawk Down
***
Cinema Releases - January 18, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. 144
minutes. Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by Ken Nolan, Steve Zaillan; from
the book by Mark Bowden. Starring Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore,
Eric Bana, William Fichtner, Ewen Bremner, Sam Shepard.
A few days after seeing "Black Hawk
Down", I overheard a conversation about the American military. Reliance
on technology, a guy was saying, might be fine for push-button operations,
but it leaves forces unprepared for situations in which high-tech machines
aren't available. Troops are so used to technological support that when they
find themselves in unexpected ground combat, they're more or less hung out
to dry.
The guy had a point. Western governments spend
so much money on space-age weaponry and tracking devices that we tend to
think of our forces as invincible. Our missions in Bosnia over the past few
years have seen hardly any lives lost, and the hazardous mission in Iraq
a decade ago was more successful than anyone could have imagined (or so we
were told).
"Black Hawk Down" is the first major movie to
show how today's military action can be as gruelling as it ever was. It follows
the disastrous Mogadishu raid of October 1993, when American soldiers diverted
from their peacekeeping mission to arrest two major lieutenants of warlord
Mohammad Farrah Aidid. What was supposed to be an hour-long in-out mission
turned into nine hours of carnage when Somali militia opened fire on U.S.
troops; eighteen Americans and five hundred Somalis were
killed.
Ridley Scott's film spends at least two thirds
of its 144 minutes on the ground, demonstrating the confusion that occurs
among soldiers when things aren't going as expected, the difficulty of battle
in an urban environment, the practical difficulty of radio communication
amid the noise of gunfire, the impossibility of moving troops when they are
surrounded by armed enemies, and the difficulty of maintaining effective
air support -- the film's title is a reference to the fact that the Somalis
had access to missile launchers, and American helicopters were simply shot
down.
"Black Hawk Down" has grim, dizzying cinematography,
expert pyrotechnics and a use of music that prevents the action from becoming
repetitive or numbing, and maintains the feeling of tension and horror as
the raid keeps extending in length. The film is also skilful at revealing
characters through action; the moments of obvious heroism in the picture,
like when a soldier removes the cast from his arm so he can volunteer for
a rescue mission, are less effective than those in which we simply see reactions
to tense situations. These men are brave, quick-witted, strong... and also
human, which means they get tired, annoyed and dispirited. The actors bring
their characters alive just by being there and having personalities; compare
the interaction here to that of a worthless movie like "Pearl Harbor" and
you'll see what I mean.
Some of the casting choices are bizarre -- Ewan
McGregor's embarrassingly bad American accent is a distraction whenever he
appears, and I have no idea why Ewen Bremner is here, acting in his familiar
goofball style while bullets fly past his head. The best performance in the
film is by the Australian actor Eric Bana, who presents an aura of strength,
control and moral wisdom -- not with big speeches, but just by convincing
us that he's committed to doing his job. The rest of the players, including
Josh Hartnett, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner and Sam Shepard, are simple,
unobtrusive, confident and believable, which is exactly what is
required.
"Black Hawk Down" is not one of the great war
movies. A film like "Platoon", which mixes battle chaos with solid dramatic
structure, is more effectively cinematic. But the Somalia mission was one
of the biggest American military screw-ups of recent years, and "Black Hawk
Down" is valuable as historical record and visceral experience. It's an expert
depiction of a terrible day.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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