Black Hawk Down

After watching Steel Magnolias, I spent the next few days looking through Glamour for new hairstyles, being courteous and polite, and talking about my feelings. Acting decidedly not like myself, I sought a return to normalcy through film. Last night I watched Black Hawk Down and man, am I sorted out. Just in time for National Man Day, might I add.

I excitedly rented the blu-ray of this and popped it in my PS3, settling into my couch with a bag of salty delicious popcorn. The next two and a half hours were a welcome exercise for my seldomly taxed entertainment system. Black Hawk Down has a LOT going on, all the time. Which for a war movie, is usually a good thing.

For those of you who haven't seen it, the film is a depiction of the failed raid in Mogadishu Somalia, 1993. There are a lot of characters, including Josh Hartnett's Staff Sgt. Eversmann, who finds himself leading men for the first time into a rather sticky situation. All hell inevitably breaks loose, mistakes are made, chains of command are questioned, and the actors you recognize all live to fight another day (except SPOILER ALERT>>>>>> Jeremy Piven, poor bastard).

Black Hawk Down is a really well made movie. It is fast paced and slickly edited, and the production values are through the roof. At times it is easy to forget you are watching a movie and not a war documentary. The production design is what sets this apart from other modern war movies. The city of Mogadishu (actually filmed in Morocco) is a character unto itself. The burned out cars littering the streets, rusted over swing sets abandoned in courtyards, it all makes the action feel very real. In this regard, Black Hawk Down is second, in my opinion, to Saving Private Ryan, as far as recent war films go (high praise, to be sure).


My only beef, and this is something only a movie buff would notice, is the preponderance of non-American actors playing the soldiers. I know, I know, its only a movie. But this is a film about American heroes, why can't we find some Americans to play them? And Orlando Bloom's accent was just awful. I was glad he didn't talk much (why is it that when Brits/Aussies play American they always go with the Southern twang? We don't all sound like that).

Last couple of notes:
WHY is Tom Sizemore always the loveable but gruff higher up who never ducks for cover when bullets are flying all around?

and WHY do the Somalians have such horrible accuracy with their weapons? I play Call of Duty, and those guys were noobs as far as I could tell. Didn't they ever practice? I mean at the end, the Americans are literally filling the courtyard, just standing there and slowly moving around, and the bad guys can't hit them??

(ok, not notes, but rhetorical questions)

Production Value: 5/5
Acting Performances: 3/5
Action: 4/5
Josh Harnett pensive stares: 4 or 5 I think, will recount later.

Overall: 9/10