Stars:
Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana, William Fichtner, Ewen
Bremner, Sam Shepard, Kim Coates, Jason Isaacs, Brenden Sexton III, Richard
Tyson, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Writer:
Ken Nolan
Based
On The Book By: Mark Bowden
Director:
Ridley Scott
Feature
length: 144 minutes
Extras:
On The Set Featurette, Theatrical Trailers, and Filmographies
Languages:
English and French Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles:
English Captions and Closed Captions and French, Chinese, and Thai Subtitles
Packaging:
Amaray Keep Case
Chapter
Stops: 28
Sound:
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound
Year
of Theatrical Release: 2001/DVD Release: 2002
Theatrical
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
Home
Video Distributor: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment
MPAA
Rating: R
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
In
October of 1993, an elite group of American Rangers and Delta Force soldiers are
sent to Mogadishu, Somalia on a search and retrieval mission to remove a violent
warlord. The mission that should have taken less than an hour ended up lasting
somewhere between 18 and 22-hours as the troops become trapped with overwhelming
forces against them and no relief in sight.
Produced
by Jerry Bruckheimer and Directed by Ridley Scott, “Black Hawk Down” is a
slick visual testament to the heroics and drive behind America’s armed forces
and a frightening examination of anarchy and mob rule. The film is quite slick
and stylized while visually magnificent to watch with beautiful widescreen
compositions. Scott shows in frightening detail the horrors of combat with
guerilla style mercenaries and militia who outnumber the Elite forces something
like twenty to one at least. They used families as shields and even had civilian
women and grade school age children attacking with guns and whatnot. In one
terrifying scene a pilot is dragged out of a downed chopper and practically torn
apart by the masses of people in a bloody frenzy. In another scene we see an
American soldier literally pierced by a shell that flies right into his body,
killing him, but it never leaves his body so he has an unexploded, but possibly
still live missile like armament sticking through his body like a spear.
The
film also delves into the politics of the situation revealing the fact that the
men could have been better prepared had the American congress allowed the use of
more sophisticated backup armament technology. This combined with the fact that
the intelligence gathered from spies was questionable almost makes it seem as
though they had no idea just how dug in the militia was in the city. Our
soldiers are incredibly skilled and I mean it when I state these guys are among
the best we have and it is their skill and training that ultimately makes the
story truly heroic. The militia have more guns and unlimited man power plus the
advantage of knowing the lay of the land and not being tied down by any code of
military justice or UN sanctified humanitarian efforts, which is why the troops
were sent there the begin with. However they are not as skilled as the American
troops sent in so despite the overwhelming odds many of the trapped soldiers
were able to hold off the enemy until help arrived.
Relief
efforts were leading to the death of civilians and the continuation of famine at
a biblical level. The food was used to buy arms for the warlords and another
element in the politics behind this film is that for every warlord that is
deposed, there are others waiting to take over so one has to ask, is the mission
being handled practically and is there an alternative? I don’t have an answer.
It is terrible since militias overrun the city to this day. As crazy as this
might seem I watched this film and thinking about events in this country over
the last 15 years, I honestly can imagine a situation like this happening in the
United States should chaos and anarchy breakout unchallenged. It is very scary.
Think about everything that is going on right now across the globe and
America’s involvement directly, indirectly, or potentially and tell me if you
do not think this could not happen again, even within our own country? The
attitude of UN relief forces reveals another aspect of the politics behind the
fight by giving the impression that the egos of foreign allied UN forces were
bruised by not being informed of the extract mission and then subsequently
dragged their feet with the rescue effort. These are the reasons why I think
“Black Hawk Down” is an important film that should be seen on DVD by all.
It
is no surprise that “Black Hawk Down” won an Academy Award® for Best Sound
because the English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack is excellent, rivaling
many DTS mixes. For the soundtrack alone, this would make a great “Superbit
Deluxe” title should Columbia TriStar choose to go that route on a future
special edition DVD set, which will happen though I have no information on when.
Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment made this quit clear before releasing this
standard DVD edition, which I still highly recommend for both the content and
presentation. A French Language Soundtrack and English Captions and Closed
Captions as well as French, Chinese, and Thai Language Subtitles are encoded on
to the dual layered DVD as options. The transfer is excellent with an anamorphic
widescreen (2.40:1) aspect ratio preserving the theatrical presentation for both
standard and widescreen televisions and was down converted from a high
definition master.
A
24-minute behind-the-scenes featurette with videotaped cast and crew interviews
from the set of the production, cast and crew filmographies, and trailers for
“Spider-Man” and “The One” with Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and
widescreen (1.85:1) aspect ratios wrap up the extra features on this DVD. The
interactive menus feature full motion scene animation with animated transitions
to standard interactive still frames and all are easy to navigate. An insert
with liner notes is included within the DVD keep case.
“Black
Hawk Down” will debut on DVD-Video on Tuesday, June 11, 2002 from Columbia
TriStar Home Entertainment and I highly recommend this DVD despite the lack of
any substantial extra features because of the content and presentation of the
film itself, which ultimately is the most important aspect of any DVD anyway.
©
Copyright 2002 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.