"Black Hawk Down" (2001) - Movie Review

When the crew lines up and various soldiers gather up for a mission supposed to be a cake walk, it is indeed going to be a walk in a hell. “Black Hawk Down” is how several US soldiers were trapped in the middle of a city in Somalia. And how they kept themselves on hold and of all being there for each other is the film. This war of getting out of the hell hole happened in the October 3rd 1993. The mission was to capture the couple of main associates of the warlord in Somalia who seized the humanity support sent by the world. The Army Rangers, Delta Force Team and the air assistance of Black Hawk Helicopters with the Fly birds capture them. But the militia brings down the helicopters and this shifts the whole weight of the mission to another curvature. The teams advance towards the crash sites to rescue the wounded soldiers. This battle of survival and rescue forms the movie with stunning editing, photography and performances.

Most of the people can hardly put them up in the shoes of the soldiers. It is next to impossible. Thinking about it brings chills, but when it comes down to it, we face it. Maybe, just maybe the actors who play the characters can associate to this feeling. Having to play the parts which happened for real and grueling themselves for the period of time the movie was shot, should definitely make them feel what the soldiers felt. So transforming it into the people who see it is the knack of executing it. There have been umpteen films which hit those, so why this movie be any different? It is based on the true events for one and the second is the concentration of the brotherhood in the soldiers. While in any of the war movies this comes as an emotion rightly tapped for the moments, it is an entire movie on that. The certainty of not leaving any one is the mission inside the mission. The film got its name due to the black hawk, the chopper going down which totally alters the mission plan and state of mind of the team. This brother hood is the content solidified to speak out in perfection and true to the events.

There are rescue missions of blind action movies like “Rambo” and “Delta Force” series. And as said earlier, movies with real emotional content and the whole question of war per se movies. This movie of course does not combine those. Also it does not fall in either of the categories completely. It is an action movie but we feel the brutal blood spattering in our face is real. It is highly emotional but the feeling of it as said in it can only be completely understood by a soldier. When there is shower of bullets and some one getting themselves out there to give a hand to his next soldier without concern for his life, it is human in the midst of unknown political violence. As Hoot (Eric Bana) says, there is no politics out there and there seems to be no broad view of right or wrong. The only right is save lives at the cost of killing other lives. This is war. The movie makes us realize that instantaneously. The film does not argue about the politics or the stand point of war. It is the human affection in a territory where it is questioned every moment.

The military personnel are not shown as typecast routine people most of the war movies portray. There is fear in every one of them, on and off the field. In fact the fear is extremely excruciating for the off the field people since they watch the killings and they can do nothing about it except making decisions. This is the suffering one cannot train or prepare for. General Garrison (Sam Shepard) along with his associates has the job of it. And even more painful for him is that he has been there and knows the exact state of mind over it. There are of course some modifications and creativity in between the real incident and the movie. And it pops up as the Delta Force soldier Hoot (Eric Bana). This is the character which represents the true state of all the soldiers. It is the amalgamation of right character creativity with reality. There is no time to think when the movie is compressed with continuous chaos surrounding every moment. And a character like Hoot at the end of the movie needs to say that to come close on what the entire exercise is about. And while doing that it should not cross the line of reality and it is intact.

Ridley Scott provides each of his film with the entertainment coated with reality. And it is the entertainment which might get the term misunderstood. Entertainment as such is a word of casual nature and without proper significance. And when it is attached with a serious movie, it some how seems inappropriate. Hence it needs the right explanation and justice done to the material as well as the word. This film entertains the idea of humanism. And in the process of it, we really entertain the idea of it. The sympathy of the nineteen soldiers goes to the same thousands of people in Somalia who lost their lives. Every one chooses their action but sadly some of them fail to identify the consequences of it. The director tells the story of something good coming out of it, individually to each soldier. It is the most crucial place to get that emotion, because there is no time to think and the US soldiers think those to save their brothers.