Black Hawk Down

Black Hawk Down is illustrious movie depicting a mission-gone-wrong during the U.S.'s peacekeeping mission in Somalia in 1993. This is the story of a planned 30-minute mission that turned into 15-hour blood bath when American troops were sent unprepared into Mogadishu to capture the ruling warlords. The film gets off to a rather slow start. Its attempt to set up the characters just does not work. We get some rather stale comments from a few soldiers about whether they think the US's place in Somalia is appropriate or not, but very little that sets up the plot.

Once the battle starts (about 30 minutes into the film), it doesn't stop. It is a horrifying and intense 90 minutes depicting the very gruesome and tragic events. Fortunately, the characters become more interesting as we see how they act in the face of battle. Their choices and actions in the course of battle are what really build their characters, and by the end of the film you get a good sense of who these men are and why they choose to fight.

The film's theme is how the American soldiers persevered in this incident. It takes the view that the American soldiers fight in the name of brotherhoodÐ'--they fight to stand by their fellow soldiers in arms, and reminds us that we must always go into battle prepared.

Director Ridley Scott (Hannibal, Gladiator) manages to avoid being "preachy" about the politics involved in this incident by telling its story from the soldiers' perspective. Rather, the film demonstrates what happened and what it would have been like to be there as it happened. This honest representation is bound to upset the history-revisionists and the "politically correct police" who wish to propagate their own political agenda.