Release Date:
12/28/2001
Black Hawk Down is, hands-down, one of the best war movies weve ever seen. No shit. Its the opening 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan stretched into two and a half hours. Its brutal, its unmerciful, and you need to see it. Really.
Based on the novel about the U.S. involvement in Somalia, Black Hawk Down makes visible what the news could only hint at. Think the footage of that dead soldier being dragged through the streets on CNN was brutal? Well, that takes place a good hour and forty-five minutes into this movie, and what leads up to it aint all that pretty, either. Director Ridley Scott knows hes making a war movie, and he follows the game plan pretty closely. But Black Hawk Down succeeds where others have failed thanks to Scotts little choices; he downplays the corn, the sentimentality, and the obvious heroism. You dont need a music cue to know whats scary, whats heroic, and whats sad. The Rambo moments are kept to a minimum, and the gunfire does not cease. Its often hard to take, but you cant look away. We havent been this engaged by a movie in a while, and the star-studded cast is uniformly excellent (Sam Shepard, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Jeremy Piven, Eric Banaand we have officially forgiven both Josh Hartnett and Ewan McGregor for Pearl Harbor and Moulin Rouge, respectively, just for being in this movie). Maybe were reacting on an emotional level and not being clear-headed criticsbut what the fuck is wrong with that? Black Hawk Down socks you in the solar plexus, and makes no apologies.
(Black Hawk Down opens December 28, 2001 in New York and Los Angeles. It opens nationwide on January 18, 2002)
Based on the novel about the U.S. involvement in Somalia, Black Hawk Down makes visible what the news could only hint at. Think the footage of that dead soldier being dragged through the streets on CNN was brutal? Well, that takes place a good hour and forty-five minutes into this movie, and what leads up to it aint all that pretty, either. Director Ridley Scott knows hes making a war movie, and he follows the game plan pretty closely. But Black Hawk Down succeeds where others have failed thanks to Scotts little choices; he downplays the corn, the sentimentality, and the obvious heroism. You dont need a music cue to know whats scary, whats heroic, and whats sad. The Rambo moments are kept to a minimum, and the gunfire does not cease. Its often hard to take, but you cant look away. We havent been this engaged by a movie in a while, and the star-studded cast is uniformly excellent (Sam Shepard, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Jeremy Piven, Eric Banaand we have officially forgiven both Josh Hartnett and Ewan McGregor for Pearl Harbor and Moulin Rouge, respectively, just for being in this movie). Maybe were reacting on an emotional level and not being clear-headed criticsbut what the fuck is wrong with that? Black Hawk Down socks you in the solar plexus, and makes no apologies.
(Black Hawk Down opens December 28, 2001 in New York and Los Angeles. It opens nationwide on January 18, 2002)