Rating: 
Summary: a masterpiece of war cinema
Review: along the lines of Saving Private Ryan, The Longest Day and The Thin Red Line, Black Hawk Down scores threw the streets of Somalia. the cast are excellent. Josh Hartnett(Blow Dry, Hollywood Homicide), Eric Bana(The Hulk, Chopper), Ewan McGregor(Rouge Trader, NightWatch), Sam Shepard(Hamlet2000, SwordFish), Jason Issacs(The Patriot, Event Horizon), Ewen Bremner(Trainspotting, Pearl Harbor), William Fichtner(Heat, Armageddon),Tom Sizemore(Heat, Dreamcatcher), Ron Eldard(The Last Supper, Mystery, Alaska), Ricahrd Tyson(Battlefield Earth, Two Moon Junction), Jeremy Piven(Serendipity, Red Letters),Zeljko Ivanek(Tv's Angel), Tom Guiry(Tigerland, All I Wanna Do), Orlando Bloom(Pirates Of The Carribean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl), Kim Coates(The Last Boy Scout, Battlefield Earth), Brian Van Holt, Brenden Sexton III(Desert Blue, Boys Dont Cry), and Gabriel Casseus(Black Dog). filled with nonstop, pulsepounding action sequences and gruesome war torture and that part where Josh Hartnett has to a vein on the guys cut off hand from stop bleeding is a stomachturned. highlight is when Ewan McGregor is shot at by a missle and theres a big explosion, the other guy comes to him and he asks him if hes ok, Ewan says my ears or ringing..or something like that, it was awesome
Rating: 
Summary: The Book Is Better
Review: To get the real gist of this battle that was a real cluster of an operation read the book. The DVD starts out well but then doesn't jell together to describe the real highlights of the battle that are depicted in the book. But then again, movies have a difficult time capturing the essence of any book.
Rating:
Summary: Black Hawk Down is a good movie.
Review: This should be required viewing for all Americans on the day before thanksgiving. As Americans we have so much to be thankful for, but freedom isn't free.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, Though A Little Hollywood
Review: I think its editing and use of music and sweeping cinematography is at times a little melodramatic, like something out of a Michael Bay film. By the time we get to the scenes where they're flying over the city with megaphones giving emotional support to their P.O.W, it feels more like a dream sequence. I also didn't like Scott's direction of the two guys with the M-60...too light-hearted and whimsical given the surrounding scenes. It also focuses too much on the Rangers, and at times is too nice on them, many of whom were hiding in their Humvees and refusing to clear buildings. The Deltas, along with a select few Rangers, kept the operation from being an entire loss and held that group together. And I was disappointed they didn't show Filmore's comforting of a Ranger and then subsequent death, which really shook up a lot of the inexperienced kids who looked up to the elite, professional D-boys. Still, gotta love all those low shutter angles and pushed, high-contrast footage. Fairly well done considering the oversights.
Rating:
Summary: ALL U.S. PRESIDENTS NEED TO SEE THIS ONE!
Review: EXCELLENT. TEACHES MANY LESSONS ABOUT OUR MILITARY AND ALL OF THE RED TAPE INVOLVED.IT EXPOSES THE AMERICAN MILITARY DOWN TO AN ORDINARY MILITARY FORCE (WHICH IT IS) EVERY US PRESIDENT NEEDS TO SEE THIS DVD BEFORE SENDING MORE OF OUR TROOPS TO DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE WORLD IN MY OPINION..
Rating:
Summary: great movie
Review: forget about nthe fact its about history sit down relax and get ready for one of the most violent films around. the movie is 2 hours and 30 minutes long. the first 30 minutes is talking and preparing and stuff. then at exatly when 30 minutes is over they will go to the battlefield and it will be violence for 2 hours straight. this movie is cool for tyhe intense action in the movie. lots of explosions and tons of guys dieng. also they use cool weapons and use tactical training so its not just a shoot everything that moves sort of movie. also the gore when they get shot is like WOW. they get blown up in half and even get shot so badly that when they try to save them they do some bloody stuff. if u like action movies with some gore this is the one to c. only bad thing is that the action is so much it might make ur head spin or it could get a bit repetittive and u could get bored. all in all u should check this one out.
Rating:
Summary: Thrilling
Review: Black Hawk Down is a gritty portayal of the senseless violence of war. The sotry takes place during the ill-fated Somalia campaign of the 90's. During the campaign to capture Somalian warlord Aidid, two helicopters go down. American Army Rangers and Delta Force soldiers attempt a rescue, but are repulsed by hordes of Somalian militiamen. The movie follows the trials of the conflict. I was really impressed with the reality of the battle scenes. You'll feel like you're in the middle of the action. After see this, you'll really respect what soldiers have to go through in the field. However after the casualties start mounting up, you get get a feeling that all these deaths are a waste--lives lost to poor planning and policy. I hope that we think more carefully about war befire we send our soldiers to face such a hell on earth. Check out this movie, you won't regret it. One caution--this film contains graphic displays of violence, so if you're sensitive to such scenes, you may be in for a rude shock.
Rating:
Summary: A Slightly Revisionist History but a Well Deserved 5 Stars
Review: I had read the book a couple of years prior to the film version's release and had anticipated the release of the movie with unflagging impatience. If you like non-fiction first person accounts, Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down is definitely worth reading, it makes you really feel for the individuals who participated. Considering the depth of detail of the book and my mounting anticipation, I had some fears that the movie would not be able to capture the series of events in their entirety as the book had so brilliantly. Overall I would say that the movie did a fantastic job with the action and incorporating a lot of stories that I would have liked to include, but a review of the original text is mandatory for anyone who enjoyed this movie; as a pair the two do an awesome job of highlighting what an amazing story this is. Please note there are some spoilers in this review. There are some portions of the film version Black Hawk Down's construction however that frustrated me; in particular the casting. Though Ewan McGregor and Ewen Bremner are both fine actors, I did not think their placement in this movie was especially warranted. I have always been bothered by poor imitation accents of any sort, but these are particularly bad examples of false American accents. Overall I think their failings detract from the audience's ability or at the very least this viewer's ability to be absorbed by the film. Detracting slightly further from this movie was the fact that it was originally scheduled to be released around the same time as the attack was made on the World Trade Center. The movie was temporarily delayed in its release because it was feared that America would not have the stomach for a film like this given the tragedy that had been visited upon them. I heard, although I have not confirmed this, that the movie was re-edited to show more of the triumph of the American spirit rather than the disaster that the insertion into "the Mog" (Mogadishu) was. This readjustment of the film's tone, I think, if it was in fact made, most likely detracted from the poignancy of the story. Perhaps the film always did carry the strong patriotic undertow; I know it would have been very hard for Director Ridley Scott to gain the incredible support of the US Military that this film received had it not. I will say that in not telling the story exactly as it was I think that the movie does a disservice to the individuals who fought on both sides in October 1993. Again with the amount of material it is very hard to incorporate all of it but there was some material in the film that was revisionist history when the book (which I trust entirely) and the film (which I trust less) are compared. For example: in the movie the individual who falls from the chopper does so during a unexpected hard maneuver to avoid an RPG, in the book this individual fell because he had way too much equipment and lost his hold on the rope falling some 200' in the process. The fall from the chopper and the resultant critical patient was the initial event that threw the rhythm of the team off so early and showed that this insertion was FUBAR from start to finish. What I found fascinating in the book which was absent in the movie was how the Somalians figured out how to use a surface-to-surface weapon, the RPG, to down an airborne targets, black hawk helicopters - they dug holes in the streets to absorb the blast from the back of the RPG (which otherwise would burn them if they tried to shoot into the air) and lay down on the ground facing skyward towards the circling helicopters with the end of the RPG in the hole. I am not sure why they did not include this fact in the movie. Most frustrating is the fact that no mention is given of what brought a good intentioned mission to the point where an entire city was seemingly against the Americans, particularly given the fact that the widely televised landing of the American troops on the beach got very little notice in Somalia. Certain examples of poor PR work which no doubt contributed to the disatisfaction of the Somalis were the chopper pilots who liked to hover over some of the impoverished peoples homes because they found it was amusing when the prop wash literally tore the roofs off these peoples shacks - the same trick also supposedly worked with the women's traditional dress. True, this should not have resulted in the backfire of a humanitarian mission but certain things like this unfortunately contributed. I thought it was an oversimplification to show as the movie did that it was only the warlords hired guns Somalian fighters who worked for Khat, a narcotic, who turned out against the Americans. Anyway, do not get me wrong this is a great movie and it deserves all five of the stars that I gave it. It was a slightly different interpretation of the book than I had made. I saw the book as a cautionary tale that even the scorpion gets taken down by the ants every once in a while, rather than a confirmation of American might - they got lost in a city and drove in circles getting shot up all day for goodness sake. As a side note please do not get me wrong I support our troops, they do an amazing job but it needs to be recognized that sometimes they fail (and they are allowed to), and I would see this as a failure as well as a triumph. Please enjoy the movie I know I did.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting film
Review: Not boring and it shows how USA can't do it all for the 3rd world.
Good acting,good action ,very real and alive!
Rating: 
Summary: A Poorly Made Movie Recounting Bad Days in Mogadishu
Review: The crowds in Somalia cheered this movie. Need I say more? If you want to see a good war movie, that doesn't have to do with Vietnam, get Behind Enemy Lines, starring Owen Wilson.
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