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Black Hawk Down
Movie: 9/10
Woefully ignored at the Oscars, Black Hawk Down finished the year as my top rated film of 2001. Director Ridley Scott has long been known as a visual whiz and he threw every bit of that skill into creating a film that, more than any other film, puts the viewer smack dab in the middle of combat. The fighting is so realistic that viewers tend to duck and flinch as if they were there.
The film focuses on a single battle that occurred in 1993 in Mogadishu, Somalia. US Delta Force and Rangers were sent on a raid to capture top lieutenants of the warlord Aidid. The mission was only expected to take thirty minutes but the raid descendef into chaos when one of the Black Hawk helicopters supporting the mission was shot down. Suddenly the US forces had to reach and defend downef pilots in a hostile city, surrounded by thousands of angry and armed Somalians.
Some critics have slammed Scott for ignoring character development and the political climate in favor of pure action. In doing so, they miss the point of the film. The story here is the battle and nothing more. Character development is largely irrelevant as it is far more important to observe how the troops conduct themselves and how they work together. The mistake is in assuming that the story is being told in a traditional way. Scott rightly strips the story of baggage to focus on the battle. We learn only enough of the politics to set the scene. He manages not to lose the audience despite fighting that takes place at several locations. He uses the watchful high tech eyes of the US base to help us keep tab on everything.
The end result is a film that brings home the graphic violence of war in as unglorified a manner as possible.
Video: 9/10
Simply put, this film is gorgeous. Color is rich, contrast is excellent and details are wonderfully sharp. The only reason this misses a ten is for the hard to read end credits.
Audio: 10/10
Excellent work here to create an immersive sound field that nicely backs up the action for accentuated realism. The sound is crisp and clear through out the film.
Extras: 4/10
Here is where the disc falls down. A quality film, lovingly transfered to DVD is accompanied by next to no additional material. There is a single behind the scenes documentary that runs about twenty minutes. The disc doesn't even contain the film's own trailer, instead including trailers for other Sony films, Spider-Man and The One. Just a pitiful effort.
Overall: 7/10
The movie is great and great care was taken to transfer it to DVD but apparently the producers were too tired to give you much else. They weren't too tired to try and sell you on a couple of their other movies though.
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