Black Hawk Down
review by KJ Doughton, 18 January
2002 Like Luke
Skywalker dive-bombing his star-cruiser into one of the Death Star’s
narrow crevices, the four starring helicopters in Black Hawk Down
plunge between buildings and into the urban valleys of Mogadishu,
Somalia. Just as the rebel alliance in Star Wars came to rid
"a galaxy far, far, away" from the tyranny of Darth Vader, the Delta
pilots helming these shark-shaped, aerial war crafts are closing in
on Mohamed Farrah Aidid, a brutal Somalian dictator. Meanwhile,
instead of droids, light sabers, and blasters, the military might
that stormed Somalia in the October of 1993 to extract Aidid and
allow the country’s starving citizens access to food relief supplies
carried night vision goggles, portable rocket launchers, and
bullets. Lots of bullets.
With all the similarities between
Star Wars’ futuristic civil warring and Black Hawk Down’s
contemporary, fact-based combat, why does the former feel so upbeat
while the latter leaves one in a state of dizzy, disorienting
fatigue? Maybe it’s because George Lucas’ vision didn’t include a
burned, bloody canvas of severed hands, arterial spray, and bodies
torn in two. Indeed, while both movies employ state of the art
action and gadgetry, Star Wars still provides a feel-good,
escapist fantasy. With Black Hawk down, there is no escape.
This is war served up as real as it gets.
Black Hawk Down is so
unrelenting in its vicarious tour of battlefield hell that after
awhile, we’re acclimated to the sight of a dozen Somali bodies
cluttering the backdrop of any given scene. Death becomes the rule,
not the exception. The sight of an elderly man stumbling through the
streets with a slain youth in his arms becomes just another piece of
scenery. Eventually, the film’s shoot ‘em up action loses its power
to excite, to stir, or to even hold our interest. Which is the point
entirely. As an Aidid follower explains to a captured U.S. soldier,
"You Americans can go home to your interesting lives when this is
over. But this is our lives."
Black Hawk Down’s numbing
combat is preceded by some explanatory captions, superimposed over
images of skeletal Somalis wandering the country’s desert landscape
while a harsh sun pounds down on them. Those that can walk are
staggering like zombies while others, robbed of even minimal
sustenance, are lying supine on the sand, like so much wasted human
driftwood. It’s April 1993, and 30,000 of the East African country’s
inhabitants have starved to death. A United Nations peacekeeping
mission has been deployed to restore access to Red Cross food
distribution centers, which are being hoarded by Aidid’s armies.
American military brass plan to thwart the warlord’s bullying abuse
of power by kidnapping two of his high-ranking lieutenants in an
"extraction raid." The mission is perceived as a quick, easy,
"in-out" procedure, involving copters, Humvees, and 160 soldiers.
Director Ridley Scott (Alien,
Bladerunner, Gladiator), a master at conveying exotic times and
places through meticulous detail and epic set-pieces, begins the
film by walking us through one of Mogadishu’s busy downtown
marketplaces, where ammunition and bayonets are sold alongside fish
and bananas. Clearly, artillery is as common a commodity as
toiletries or produce for the average battle-worn Somalian out for a
little weekend shopping. Abruptly, Scott positions us inside a
military compound, where Major General Garrison (Sam Shepard)
interrogates an Aidid-linked gun supplier held hostage. Nearby,
young Army Rangers and Delta Force soldiers scope out the baby-blue
surf of the African coastline in a symmetrical line of helicopters,
primed to kick ass when the time is right. Meanwhile, they’ll be
happy to shoot wild boar and barbecue the tasty beasts at a
beachfront cookout.
One can sense a thick rivalry
settling in during such gatherings, as when Ranger Captain Mike
Steele (Jason Isaacs) reprimands a cocky, younger soldier under his
command. "I could have you cleaning latrines with your tongue ‘til
you don’t know the difference between sh*t and french fries," he
warns. Meanwhile, we meet other Army Rangers, like the impatient
Grimes (Ewan McGregor), whose ability to type has put him behind a
desk instead of a gun. The most action he’s seen involves brewing
the morning coffee at an Army administration office. There’s also
Eversmann (Josh Hartnett), an idealist who sympathizes with the
Somalis (dubbed "skinnies" by the American fighters). "These people
have no jobs, no education, no food, and no future," he observes of
Mogadishu’s citizens. "We’re here to help, or watch the city destroy
itself on CNN."
When his superior officer is
shipped home following a sudden epileptic seizure, Eversmann is put
in charge of his band of fighting men. He’s up for the job,
reassuring the warriors on his team that they’ll ace the mission.
"We’re not some sorry-assed ROTC," he reminds them. "We’re elite."
While the film leaves it up to the
viewer to sift through its labyrinthine, congested web of key
players and military logistics, Black Hawk Down sets up the
soldiers’ assignment with a fascinating patchwork of bird’s eye
views. An insider below them, helming a vehicle that’s tracked by
overhead helicopters, weaves through Mogadishu’s grimy, dust-caked
alleys towards the enemy’s lair. We watch the driver emerge and pop
the car’s hood. It appears that the radiator has burst, with steam
billowing from beneath, but the image is actually a signal to the
airborne snoops above that they’ve arrived at their target.
Suddenly, the helicopters are
descending on the city block, soldiers are being deployed via drop
ropes, and Aidid’s honchos are being rounded up for capture. A
steely-eyed General Garrison observes the mission continue like
clockwork, from glowing command center monitors.
However, the tide turns
unexpectedly, as rooftop militia armed with portable
rocket-launchers flood the scene, their missiles hissing towards the
Black Hawks with tails of wispy, gray smoke. Within seconds, all
hell breaks loose, a soldier toppling from his rope with a
backbreaking thud, while hot lead cuts into whooshing rotor
blades. Soon, copters are down, and American troops are exchanging
skin-searing gunfire in an orgy of bloodletting that Sam Peckinpah
could only dream of. Lacking the comic whimsy of Chinese gangster
cinema or the respites provided by Steven Spielberg’s similarly
savage Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down becomes
one long, nasty, sustained visit to the trenches of hell.
In direct contrast to his
Gladiator, in which everything hinged on the fate of one looming
character, Scott has taken a completely different approach with
Black Hawk Down, scattering a handful of heroes all over the
map. There’s no center to this unsparing universe, and the effect is
one of confusion and disarray. Helicopter pilots navigate ground
vehicles to crash sites, unaware that key thoroughfares are blocked
from access below. Rangers unknowingly shoot at each other. Pilots’
bodies are torn from fallen aircraft and desecrated by Somali
militia. It’s an ugly scene.
During one nearly unwatchable
incident , a desperate pilot trapped inside his downed copter
empties clip after clip of bullets into the never-ending waves of
Somali soldiers running towards him. As bodies sprint forward and
then collapse under the raze of ballistic firepower, the loss of
life is obscene.
The fact that the carnage
eventually becomes matter-of-fact is Scott’s biggest triumph. Such
sustained violence might not carry the emotional whirlwind that more
dynamically paced films can offer, but it does make for the most
realistic approach to this historical incident, which raged for over
fourteen hours. Black Hawk Down is unprecedented in conveying
the numbing sense of being jaded to combat, whether one is a foreign
soldier on a drawn-out peacekeeping mission, or a resident civilian
who has come to see such unending war as an everyday fact of life.
The movie is also made memorable by
the chiseled, rugged faces worn by its capable cast members. Eric
Bana (who starred as the outspoken killer in Australia’s recent cult
hit, Chopper), playing a seasoned Delta operator who has seen
war before and doesn’t try to make sense of it, is all coiled, quiet
intensity behind rose-tinted shades. William Fichtner (Armageddon,
Heat), appearing as another savvy pilot, has the timid,
seen-it-all eyes of a tired raccoon. Other familiar mugs pop up,
including those of Jeremy Piven (Serendipity), and military
movie favorite Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan, Pearl Harbor).
Black Hawk Down is a major
redemption for producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who subjected the public
to last year’s celluloid atrocity Pearl Harbor and regularly
backs films with little substance to match their explosion-heavy
window dressing. Such Bruckheimer-helmed hits as The Rock, Gone
in Sixty Seconds, and Coyote Ugly might have opened big,
but they’ve since evaporated into forgotten pop-culture pap.
Black Hawk Down, boasting the most authentic depiction of
contemporary warfare ever filmed, belongs in a time capsule. It’s a
classic.
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Directed by:
Ridley Scott
Starring:
Josh Hartnett
Ewan McGregor
Sam Shepard
Eric Bana
Tom Sizemore
William Fichtner
Written
by:
Ken Nolan
Rated:
R - Restricted.
Under 17 requires
accompanying
parent or adult
guardian.
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