STARS: JOSH HARTNETT, ERIC BANA, EWAN MCGREGOR, TOM SIZEMORE, WILLIAM FICHTNER, SAM SHEPARD, RON ELDARD

Somalia is ruined by drought and civil war, thousands die of starvation and in 1993 Mohamed Farrah Aidid, one of the countries most powerful warlords ruled. America sent it’s elite soldiers the Delta Force, Army Rangers and the 160th SOAR to remove Aidid from Power

Black Hawk Down is a dramatisation of an actual conflict that cost the lives of 19 American soldiers who unsuccessfully tries to rid Somalia of this powerful warlord who was hampering the UN’s efforts to aid the impoverished people of this devastated country. Aidid would commandeer the food supplies to feed his men and further fuel his war.

The film focuses in the beginning on the makeup of the American contingent, particularly the rivalry between the Delta’s and the Rangers and the effect this divisiveness could have had in a crisis situation. Elements of this divisiveness make themselves present in the battle, clearly there was an us against them mentality even amongst their own.

The last three quarters of this film is one of the most detailed and intense action sequences ever filmed. It is quite a directorial feat to not only stage and keep track of such a complex sequence, but to keep it from becoming overwhelming.

Director Ridley Scott and Producer Jerry Bruckheimer made some strange yet successful casting choices, a large part of the cast are not American, including Australia’s Eric Bana and Ewan McGregor, Orlando Bloom and Jason Isaacs among others from England, all brandishing heavy American accents with various levels of success.

Ridley Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer are almost polar opposites in their approach to filmmaking and for this project it works very well. Ridley Scott is the technician who is trying to tell the story as accurately as possible while Bruckheimer is the romantic who tries too hard to bring the human element (a common trait amongst all of his films). In Black Hawk Down, each keeps the other in check, neither too dry nor sappy.

THE EXTRAS

Theatrical Trailers:Included are Spider Man and The One.

Cast and Crew Filmographies

Black Hawk Down - On The Set: A 24 minute featurette on all facets of the production, includes interviews with all the major cast, the director, the producer and other behind the scenes personnel. In depth technical knowledge shows the amount of detail that went into the production to correctly bring to life the tragic events in Somalia.

CONCLUSION

As far as action films go, this is a beauty. Essentially this is a 2 hour movie with a 90 minute battle sequence. The added bonus is the relative historical accuracy, remember Bruckheimer is involved, which adds so much weight to this movie.