Rating: 
Summary: An AWESOME movie, one of the best war movies ever
Review: This movie was a great war movie, i think the best war movie ever. It had great special effects, a great ending, and great acting. And unlike Pearl Harbor, there is not all that boring love story junk in it. Only 20 minutes of the whole movie are they not fighting the war. If you like fast-paced, war/action-adventure, blood and guts, all-out tough movies, this is the3 best movie for you.
Rating:
Summary: As realistic as it can be
Review: After watching the excellent movie, I'd have to say: it is the best modern war movie I have ever seen. The sound and video's quality is first rated.
Rating: 
Summary: Be prepared for Graphic violence
Review: Black Hawk Down is no kids movie. I would even hesitate to call it an action movie because it really is more of a historical drama. The scariest thing that goes through my mind when I watch this movie is that these events really happened in all their gruesome, vivid imagery, and the director does not try to spare you from the horrors of the events in Somalia. Much like Saving Private Ryan, you are along for the ride into the Hell which those Army Rangers found themselves engulfed in. The acting is for the most part pretty good. The action is brutal and there is one scene in particular that can really gross you out. But the movie needs scenes like that to really help you understand what the fighting in Somalia was all about. The movie is tragic and uplifting at the same time. I actually liked the movie a little better than the book (though the book was very good) just because the movie imparts a little more emotion than the book. Just be careful when you watch this movie. You'll need a steady stomach for violence and gore.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best war movie, but a good one.
Review: I've found that after seeing "Saving Private Ryan," that I have been dissensitized to all violence. Therefore I found nothing surprising about this movie. However, it is still very good with some nice sequences, but it's still not as good as even "We Were Soldiers." It's a very dusty movie, and the dirt never completely clears out.
Rating:
Summary: A Cautionary Tale
Review: Black Hawk Down is the film adaptation of Mark Bowden's mesmerizing chronicle by the same name. It recounts a 1993 incident involving U.S. Special Forces in Somalia, a routine half-hour mission that turned into the longest sustained firefight involving U.S. forces since the Vietnam War. A mixed group of helicopter-borne Rangers, Delta Force, and a few SEALs, supported by air cover and a convoy of ground vehicles, converged on a busy marketplace in downtown Mogadishu in a lightning raid to capture two top lieutenants of renegade warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid. The raiders were blindsided when literally thousands of Somali fighters emerged from the surrounding neighborhoods with machine guns, rockets, and other sophisticated weapons. Two blackhawk helicopters were quickly downed by rocket-propelled grenades, the ground convoy got battered and lost its way repeatedly trying to rescue the downed crews, and the entire force on foot found itself under seige until it was finally rescued the following morning. The casualties included 73 U.S. fighters wounded and 19 killed, as well as 500-1000 Somalis dead. Black Hawk Down has by and large received excellent reviews, and it deserves them. For one thing, the film balances a lot of difficult things well. It memorializes the heroism of the American fighters without glamorizing their struggle; it captures the savagery and squalor of the fight in paradoxically beautiful cinematography; and it conveys the confusion and complexity of the battle while making it (mostly) apprehensible. A note about that last point: it's still a good idea to read the book before seeing the movie if you have the luxury of doing so. Before it was over, the battle sprawled over much of central Mogadishu - a large city - and encompassed several different groups of men in different sites. Director Ridley Scott does an admirable job of making sense of it all, but it will still be clearer if you read about it in stupendous (but fascinating) detail in Bowden's account. Having said the foregoing, let me warn you that this is not a movie for everyone - far from it. Black Hawk Down is an exceptionally violent film. Not grauitously so: the violence is entirely in keeping with the truth of the event, and supports the themes of the film. But it's not easy to watch, all the same. One scene involving battlefield surgery, especially, is probably a good opportunity for the squeamish to hit the concession stand for a while. With material like this, the ideal of character development and strong individual performances goes somewhat by the wayside. There are necessarily too many faces, and too many events going on, for the film to linger for any length of time on one individual. (If you want character development, check out A Beautiful Mind.) Still, the performances here are quite good given their limited parameters. Josh Hartnett comes fully into his own as the leader of a Ranger squad (a "chalk") who fights to keep his team focused on survival. Among the other performances, I liked William Fichtner as a Delta Force sergeant who takes initiative at a critical moment in the fight. You may know Fichtner from ensemble parts in other movies, such as The Perfect Storm, where he played the edgy outsider Sully. As a film and as a historical document, Black Hawk Down definitely deserves your attention.
Rating:
Summary: Its the wheels, stupid!
Review: First a warning; a movie director has a tight schedule to shoot all the scenes in the movie and he usually reuses a small supply of vehicles to replicate many vehicles. He cannot actually destroy vehicles in one scene and have them available for the next scene acting as different vehicles. What this means is that a dangerous inaccuracy exists throughout this movie less so in the book. THE RUBBER TIRES ON THE HMMWV, 5-TON AND MALAYSIAN ARMORED CARS WERE SHOT, SHREDDED AND BURNED OFF BY EXPLOSIONS IMMOBILIZING THESE VEHICLES. Because Scott had a film to finish with limited resources, the entire weakness of the air-filled rubber tired vehicle is glossed over resulting in potentially the viewer thinking combat vehicles that roll on such weak means are tactically sound when they are clearly not. Actually this is the most important lesson from the October 3, 1993 Somalia firefight, not that our men are courageous----------as the U.S. Army is currently on a delusional suicidal love embrace with the rubber-tired armored car when it should be fielding/upgrading light tracked, parachute and helicopter deliverable M113A3-type tracked tanks that can rumble right through the weak barricades endemic to third world country hellholes that stymied and blocked LTC McKnight's rubber-tired vehicle column from reaching the trapped men. Because Scott didn't show this important truth from that battle this film must be downgraded to 4 stars; the stakes are too high to continue to draw the wrong lessons. The film however does show at the end Pakistani tracked M113s and medium tanks leading the way to rescue the trapped Rangers/Delta operators and the smug, ungrateful arrogance of a few of the Rangers to admit that they needed help in a cityfight from armored vehicles and other troops they think are their "lessers". A lack of technotactical humility to admit that cloth BDU uniforms and Ranger tabs don't stop bullets resulted in the call-for-help not being immediately sent after the "snatch & grab" timetable was untenable nor having a what-if plan that realized the weakness of rubber tired wheeled vehicles to overcome obstacles and enemy fire to incorporate tracked armored vehicles available from U.N. allies in the short-term and for the long-term, permanently into Army Ranger/SOF force structure. The world is urbanizing so Somalia-type environments are the RULE not the exception---high value targets that are heavily defended need SHOCK ACTION and this means tracked tanks not just infiltrating but unarmored commandos that can be pinned down by enemy fire once surprise is lost. As of this writing the Ranger/SOF community has still not incorporated any light tracked armored vehicles into their force mix, so 9 years after Somalia they are without excuse. Courageous men deserve courageous thinking that faces unpleasant realities and solves problems; if you the viewer watch this film and conclude correctly that if the snatch & grab had the ground link-up force composed of tracked armored vehicles-------that by trial & error had to be sent in anyway---------that there would have been no "Black Hawks down!" at all you have benefited greatly from this movie.
Rating:
Summary: Accurate, Exciting & Sad: Good Movie
Review: A very accurate portrayal of the mess the U.S. let the United Nations get our soldiers involved in. It was a sad loss of life for a country of animals. Somalia was at war then and it still is today, our U.S. government, Bill Clinton, sent our troops in to attempt what the U.N. failed to do. It is a good movie that depicts honorable young men and their valor and dedication to this country and their fellow soldiers. It should act as a lesson to future politicians that the U.S. troops are not trained or designed to serve as "peace keepers" for the world.
Rating:
Summary: Very realistic and revealing.
Review: I felt this movie right to my bones. Those others that say the characters were not developed, missed the point of this film. Other than pointing out the atrocities an American Military man may face during times of war, it steadfastly built on the same principals we all learned from the first day of boot camp until if lucky enough, retirement. Only TEAMWORK and depending on those beside you for survival is non-negotiable. Personal feelings and beliefs have to be put aside to be effective. That was a very hard, but very necessary lesson we learned from the Vietnam war, and I would bet my pay the primary reason the draft went to all volunteer. You can't object if you volunteer!! In most cases and units, "a Character" is not what you want to become because you are seen as detrimental and dangerous to your buddies lives. I think his lack of development of the characters was a precise move to maybe force us to see what those soldiers were really focusing on (bringing everyone back alive). I only wondered why the flags were backwards on the uniform. I thought it was reversed film but it couldn't have been. I've never discovered the reason for that.
Rating: 
Summary: Could have been made better
Review: I feel sad everytime I watch a war movie - blood splattered across pavements, body parts blown everywhere, too much profanity. War & death basically leave me a heavy heart to reckon with. That partially explains my 2-star rating --- I basically don't feel comfortable with war movies. However, there's one particular war movie that I like & that is "Saving Private Ryan". There is a core group of soldiers, whose lives, beliefs & fates I managed to follow through. I guess that is what was lacking in Black Hawk Down. There were just too many characters, a lot of action but inadequate room for character development. I relied heavily on their faces to tie in with the characters they portrayed, but when they were all bloodied & grimed, & not enough stuff to make them stand out, I just got them all mixed up. I feel like it was just a collection of big names with hit movies to back them up, but nothing essential to mark their contribution in this particular film.
Rating:
Summary: Intensity to the 10th Power!
Review: Though I thought it impossible, this movie's intensity out does that displayed in Saving Private Ryan. Both are remarkable films in their own right, but this movie takes battle intensity (for the viewer) to an entirely new and prolonged level. One thing I have noticed with other reviews, that many complained that it was too much for them, too intense, not enough character development. What you as the viewer have to remember is that this is their story, the Rangers, Delta and Night Stalkers. It is, in many ways, more for them than for us. It's probably as clear and realistic a depiction of the nightmare these men suffered and fought through as any that has ever been brought to film before. What they experienced, I'm sorry to say was - more likely than not - a lot worse, more horrifying and more intense than anything we witnessed in this film. This film left me drained. Emotionally and physically. I was, and still am, shocked by what I've seen. However, the bottom line for me is that this movie left me with an even greater degree of respect and pride for those who serve in all our military services, but even more so for those who volunteer for service in these elite units. If these men can deal with the real horrors of combat, then I figure that the least I can do is to sit through their story and take away from it all that I can.
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