Rating: 
Summary: The best war movie after Saving Private Ryan !!!
Review: This movie totally well prepared with a lot of similar people and real place, based on the true story. From the first minute of the story, it always gives me a difficult imagination of how dare are those soldiers got into the dangerous warfield and surrounded by many unknown enemies all over the place in the targetted time limit.
Machine guns, high explosives bomb surrounded me all over the place where I sit on, it makes me numb sometimes. I felt myself in the war and can't even blink my eyes or move my body. Lastly, I found that myself is one of the soldier who can escape with no one left behind.
This is a great war movie I'd ever seen after Saving Private Ryan. Two thumbs up to all of the people who involved in the making of Black Hawk Down !!!Best regards,
Alvin Andronicus
Rating: 
Summary: A war film to rival 'private ryan'.
Review: This was a great war film. This is one of the best movies I seen in a while. It wasn't a vaseline smeared 'Pearl Harbor' and yet it didn't make me want to chuck like 'private ryan' did. But I think the 'private' beat it to the bacon. The movie didn't deserve a five star rating. Why? Because Jason Isaacs (The Patriot) couldn't come through for me. Come on man! Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbor) delivered a great performance although I think he was a little too neat and cute for what the part demanded. Best acting in this movie goes to Tom Sizemore. Ridley Scott's (Gladiator) genius as a director really showed through in this film although I believe that Spielberg and his 'private ryan' still have the edge. In all I loved it but it can't surpass 'Saving Private Ryan'.
Rating:
Summary: A Gripping War Film
Review: In this film's 2 and 1/2 hours we were glued to our seats. It is a truly exciting action film taken almost exactly from the best selling non fiction book by the same name. It's not a great film but a very good one. It is extremely violent but only to the extent that the actual events were. At first I'd intended to skip it because of negative rumors I'd heard. Finally I went to see the film, read the book, then saw the film again. I'm writing to address some of the criticisms and add some of my own ideas. The film is true to the book but includes only those parts of the book that deal with the experience of the American soldiers. To have told the whole story would have been a formidable task and would have probably required a five hour film. To have made this a film more pleasing to film aficionados would have required working with a story conceived from the beginning as a film project. Not even the politicians much less the soldiers from whom this story comes had that in mind. For an example of how a true story can be obliterated compare the film and book versions of A Beautiful Mind. Some people have suggested that if the film makers were so concerned with accuracy they should have just done a documentary. What they made instead is a compromise, neither a documentary nor a truly great film drama. Never the less it will probably reach a much wider audience than either. Ideally it will lead people to read the book. The Somalis are not portrayed as faceless except to the extent that they were perceived that way by soldiers in the midst of battle. The one question in my mind was what was motivating the Somalis to fight so fiercely. The film does not explain how the Americans in one previous raid accidentally killed and wounded a large number of non combatants. In so doing they inadvertently turned many formerly friendly or at worst neutral Somalis against them. It aided the anti American propaganda campaign whose posters announced that the Americans were there to force Somali conversion from Islam and turn them into Christian slaves. The Somali fighters were a mix of warlord militia and a larger number of armed but unorganized citizens. If some of the Somali fighters seemed maniacal it so happens they were jacked up on a powerful stimulant obtained by chewing a local plant. A film critic for a major New York newspaper was bothered by the fact there was only one black American soldier. One would hope a professional critic would check the book first but hey that's just me. There were in fact two, but one a sergeant, was killed early in the action before the first helicopter went down. Some people were offended by the fact that the Americans referred to the Somalis as "skinnies." Well that's what they called them. It was a war zone not a tea party. And to further address charges of dehumanization, the Somali warlord leadership were portrayed as the suave, educated men they were. There were only a few moments when the audience attention was sharply focused on the suffering of innocents. If that seemed insufficient it was only from the perspective of young men fighting desperately for their lives. As for those who characterize the helicopter gunship attacks as Ramboesque, killing large numbers of Somalis at once, well that's how it was. One reviewer thought the violence was pornographic. I disagree but I will offer what I consider to have been obscene about the actual events: there was no sufficient reaction force on immediate standby; there was inadequate threat assessment; despite the enormous fortune this country has invested in analyzing and developing Command Control and Communications networks, when forced to improvise we could not guide a convoy through city streets in broad daylight and in full view of three airborne camera equipped platforms. Many of our men were maimed or killed while the convoy was lost only three miles from base looking for the downed choppers. For a similar true story read, The Last Battle, by Ralph Wetterhahn.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty historically accurate
Review: Most reviews focus on the political and humanitarian background of the movie. This background is helpful, but the movie stands well on its own, even if you don't know anything about the actual events it is strictly based on.
The movie is of course based on the book of the same name, by Mark Bowden. A lot of credit should be given to Bowden; it was his tireless research that brought together a lot of scattered documents and first-hand recollections into one coherent historical piece. Before he wrote the book, there existed no single, overarching look at the battle.
I was impressed with the technical side of the movie. Battle scenes were depicted very realistically, and I couldn't find any niggling technical inaccuracies, like incorrect weapons or tactics. Most civilian viewers wouldn't notice anyway, but hats off to Scott for going the extra mile and getting good military advisors.
I was even more impressed that the movie followed the book so closely, and therefore what really happened. I don't think I've ever watched a movie that was almost an exact reproduction of the book its based on. Even so, there are a couple of historical glitches, and no real reason why they are there. When the first Blackhawk crashed (in real life)it did so in a very narrow road, knocking down a stone wall. In the movie it is in a traffic circle. In real life, the Minibird pilots showed exceptional skill landing in the narrow road to drop off medics. It's kind of an insult in the movie, when they simply landed in the great wide open. Beyond a few of these glitches, it tracks very closely. Watching the movie is like seeing the book fleshed out in full color. It gives you a taste of what grueling conditions the raiders faced.
One last thing...all U.S. participants save 2 or 3 medics were in fact Army soldiers, not "from different branches of the armed forces." Nor was this based on a "novel". It recounts, as accurately as a movie can, a real life nasty firefight and the superior efforts of U.S. Rangers, Special Forces, and Army Aviation pilots (and a few brave PJs) against what turned out to be crushing odds. So long as America produces selfless, dedicated, and highly trained soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines we have little to fear.
Rating:
Summary: Recommended
Review: This movie followed the tradition of "Saving Private Ryan" & the mini-series, "Brothers In Arms". Whereas these two offerings depicted events of World War 2, "Black Hawk Down" brought the viewers into present day setting. Regardless of what eras we belong to, the senseless of war is still very relevant to these days. This movie is never meant to convey the superiority of the American military but rather, it's portraying the soldiers who are simply carrying out their duties, living up to its credo of not leaving anybody behind, & looking after the "brothers" who are fighting along with them. As one of the character in the movie said succinctly, in a war, politics is thrown out the window. Rather, it's about survival. In terms of intensity, it's one of the best war movie that I have seen to-date. In terms of grandeur, it's very much a Ridley Scott's production, especially the final scene, as the American soldiers retreated to the Pakistani Stadium. What a spectacle! I don't know if it is an Oscar favourite but in terms of war movie, it has to be one of the best, yet!
Rating: 
Summary: The first casualty of war...
Review: I have to be honest up front . I have never been a big fan of Ridley Scott's films. They more often than not seem to be a triumph of style over substance.Unfortunately Black Hawk Down is no exception.
Visually and technically like all of Ridley Scott's work, BHD is impressive and I can see why it is doing the numbers at the box office, even receiving an Oscar nomination in the process but the movie left me cold.
At the climax of the movie I found myself not really caring about the fate of the characters.From Shepherds Marlboro man Officer in charge(something he does well,his role of Chuck Yeager in the Right Stuff was the archetypal performance) to Harnetts sensitive yet resilient character, we've seen them all before in various guises.
The dialogue was yet again classic Hollywood. Gee, War's a dirty business but HooHaa Ive got my sunglasses from Top Gun and a dozen witty throwaway lines to confirm the fact that the americans are really the good guys and if we're not good at least we're cool, everyone else is so grim godammit. War chic is in and there is nothing as chic as being part of USAs elite military forces.
I have no doubt that the military side of the operation was well researched by the films military experts and this leads to the pretence that what you are seeing is somehow the truth rather than Hollywoods spin.
As for most Hollywood war movies the film says more about the American public's perception of military conflict involving the USA and how the media in Noah Chompskys words 'manufactures consent'.
Its interesting to note that one theme heavily played on in BHD and in the other major Hollywood war movie of the moment 'Behind Enemy Lines' is in reassuring the public that we (we meaning the military and political leadership) wont leave any of our boys behind. The parading of POWs and civillian hostages via satellite is a modern phenomena.Vietnam showed how important the media is in winning the hearts and minds of the public and in 2002 more than ever there is a real fear around abandoning American soldiers overseas.Since D.W Griffths 'Birth of a Nation' Hollywood has been in the business of national myth making and propaganda, its the nature of the beast.I just dont think this film was even good propaganda.
Eric Bana's character gets to deliver the films tagline (essential for trailers) at the end of the movie.As he is about to return again to do battle ,He declares 'Its all about the man beside you...' Not only is the statement banal(the last thing any soldier face to face with the enemy has running through their mind is the geopolitical situation he/she finds themselves in)it simplifies the whole complexity of the situation into a mindless cliche.
Unfortunately the movie wasn't about the man beside him,it lacked the depth of characterisation so that an audience could empathize or understand any of the men portrayed. As a result the audience cares for the characters as much as one does for a playstation character.All that was lacking for the audience was an interactive joystick where we could tally up our own personal scores against the 'skinnies'.
The situation in Somalia was an international tragedy. Instead of providing illumination on the Somalian situation or even an exploration of the human condition in conflict, Black Hawk Down appeases the enormous public thirst for glamourised violence and waves the flag all the way to the bank.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional war movie!!
Review: It's very rare you see a war movie that is just that--a movie about war. In a way, BHD reminds me a little of TORA, TORA, TORA in that it deals with just the facts and tells them in a straightfoward, almost documentary style. There are no phony love stories or long soliloquies about the horrors of war, just soldiers fighting to save themselves and the guy next to them. BHD feels very authentic from the filming location to the young actors they used for soldiers. Although you don't get to know any one character--and there are many of them--too much, there are some standout performances; particulary good are Sam Sheppard(Major General Garrison), Tom Sizemore(Lt. Colonel McKnight), Ron Eldard(CWO Durant), and Josh Hartnett(Staff Sgt. Eversmann). Anybody who doesn't think our military soldiers are underpaid needs to see this movie. Thanks to Ridley Scott for bringing this to the big screen and giving these heroes a lasting memorial.
Rating: 
Summary: Enough is enough
Review: Don't everybody think that we already have enough of this war film stuff especially after 9.11? i do believe that we deserve a better diversion than war films after the WTC attack ! i just hope that this patriotism or whatever be stopped because definitely this will not be a good example of patriotism to our children !
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Movie
Review: This movie is simply amazing.
It has been nominated for numerous academy awards.
The effects are amazing.
The cast is great and it includes Josh Hartnett, Tom Seizmore, and Ewan Mcgregor.
If you want to have an entertaining time, go see "Black hawk Down" and you will not be disapointed
Rating:
Summary: Ridley's Believe it or not!
Review: In the Box office smash 'Black Hawk Down' Ridley Scott achieved what I was hoping for, and more. This is an intellegent war film; one that has great focus and attention to detail in portraying an event that was not widely known or published. The immediate thing that grabbed me was the competance of the cast. Josh Harnett was fabulous and perfectly cast. As for the international stars the film boasts, the line up was perfect. The audience is presented with a very out of character Ewan McGregor playing the film's psuedo comic relief through his character 'Grimey' Orlando Bloom was great for his brief stint in the film as 'Private Blackburn' and Australian blockbuster newcomer Eric Bana's performance was incendiary. I think part of the film success lies within Scott being British and thus having the ability to not be caught up in the propaganda of the time, which enabled him to give somewhat of an 'outsiders view' on the film. His work in particular in the post production phase had no doubtably influenced the way Hollywood looks at the war film, and how the public looks at cinematography within the war film genre as a whole. The only problem is when making a film in the genre that also conatins the likes of Platoon, Saving Private Ryan, Patton, Apocalypse now to name a few. It is difficult to make a film that will undoubtably be compared to these titles in the future. This is what spawns my only major critism of the film. That is I feel the film almost moved too quick for even the most modern/ postmodern 'Moulin Rouge' audience and I was left wanting more. This to could easily be attributed to the rushed style in which Ridley Scott was forced to work after the principal photography. Overall 'Black Hawk Down' is a triumph, one of this year's best fims and if you've seen it... see it again and if not... don't miss it.
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