Black Hawk Down
Ohjaus:
Ridley ScottKäsikirjoitus:
Ken NolanKuvaus:
Sławomir IdziakSävellys:
Hans ZimmerNäyttelijät:
Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana, William Fichtner, Ewen Bremner, Sam Shepard, Gabriel Casseus, Kim Coates, Hugh Dancy, Ron Eldard (lisää)Suoratoistopalvelut (3)
Juonikuvaukset(1)
Tositapahtumiin perustuvan toimintaelokuvan tapahtumat sijoittuvat Mogadishuun vuonna 1993. Yhdysvaltain erikoisjoukot lähtivät suorittamaan Somalian pääkaupunkiin pienenä pidettyä operaatiota. Paikan päällä tilanne sai karmivan käänteen. (SBS Discovery Media)
Arvostelut (8)
This is not just an action movie, but a brilliantly shot and edited action movie with wonderful sound. It is the most powerful audio experience to be had at the cinema, even better than Spielberg’s War of the Worlds.
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After a bit of a boring beginning comes the director's exhibition. Bloody, raw, gritty carnage, filmed so impressively that you have to wonder how the hell does Scott do that. Too bad about the missed Oscar nomination, Scott really deserved it. It should also be appreciated that this film does not expose the viewer the same hyper-patriotic horror as at the ending of Saving Private Ryan. After the formally perfect, but plot-wise stupid Gladiator, Ridley again fixed his reputation with me.
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A very well made borefest. There are moments when Black Hawk Down is a very intense portrayal of the hell of war, but as the minutes went by, the constant shooting (together with the alternating heroic or terrified speeches) began to bore me and by the end I was watching it with only one eye. It was too descriptive for my taste, I prefer more narrative movies.
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By the time the ink was barely dry on my ID and I had successfully passed my high school entrance exams, I headed to the movie theater to see a war movie by Ridley Scott, the filmmaker who had conveyed the unadulterated terror of my encounter with a slimy alien on TV a few weeks earlier. And it was... impressive! That was when I put down my books and fell in love with the big screen. I also took advantage of the advent of computers and my connections to people with high-speed internet to start devouring movies. In a big way. Black Hawk Down was one of them. I must have watched it 20 times at home back then. Now, about ten years later, I've come back to it and nothing has changed. Actually, it's all been amplified for me. The underlying idea of the pointlessness of the war is really flimsy, but that wasn't the point. This film is unique within its genre. In terms of creative skill in conveying a war battle, Scott and his entire crew were able to achieve the best possible outcomes: Idziak's handheld camera in the streets, the wide-angle camera units on hovering helicopters, the sound design sending the clatter of machine guns through the living room, and the rhythmic editing setting the pace along with Zimmer's roaring music. Every bolt and every nut is tightened to its fullest. I understand the competition at the time, but the fact that the film only took home two statuettes in the technical categories at the Oscars is mind-boggling. But prizes be damned. I have not the slightest doubt that when it comes to what I’ve written above, the film will continue to astonish well beyond the next decade. There's nothing to overcome here.
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Like a gritty war-themed action movie... why not... It has all the attributes of good action – swing, tension, drama and naturalistic directness. Similar to that which adorned Saving Private Ryan. Fortunately, unlike that film, it lacks the strong agitation spirit, although from a thought point of view the film is also quite schematic and pathetic. However, given the amazingly absorbing atmosphere of hot Mogadishu, good acting performances (especially Eric Bana and Ewan McGregor), this is a classic must-see for fans of American films. To all this must be added the excellent soundtrack by Hans Zimmer, the great camera and Ridley Scott, who knows how to do action scenes like few others. Only the aforementioned thought-awkwardness and occasional confusion can be criticized... but as a gritty war-themed action movie... why not... That's all I'd look for.
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The evaluation of Black Hawk Down has two levels. The first level is the technical aspects of the film, which are simply brilliant. Ridley Scott started the production of the film when he already had a long filmography behind him, and it shows in the result. This was made by an experienced top-notch craftsman who perfectly masters the camera work, sound, editing, directing the actors, and also has a very decent budget, resulting in a magnificent action shooter, one of the peaks of the action war genre. You literally feel the firing around you, bullets whizzing, holding your breath over dynamic battle shots. For this, Ridley receives 4 stars from me, because it is decent entertainment, no doubt about it. On the second level, I would like to say that Scott fails, but that would not be true. The film is missing another dimension - depth, what lies behind the facade of street fighting. And it is missing because Scott did not aim for something like that. He simply made a propaganda film about the heroism, determination, and self-sacrifice of American soldiers who defend the most humane goals and protect the local population from genocide on a foreign continent. Of course, the reality was much more complicated, and if it were not for so many human lives at stake, it would be reminiscent of a comedy. The American units were tasked in Somalia with nothing less than a demonstrative operation to capture General Aidid, the leader of the most powerful Somali clan. Aidid was an experienced veteran of wars in East Africa and as the head of the Secret Service, he cooperated with the Americans, with whom he had truly exceptional relationships. His son, as was quite common, studied in America, where he also obtained citizenship and became a military professional. As a volunteer, he applied for action in Somalia, where the Americans, enthusiastic about finally having an expert on local conditions with language skills, also engaged him. Nobody thought to verify their family ties, so the son, who was a member of the US Navy, was supposed to catch his own father. In reality, of course, General Aidid had a very good overview of what was happening, thanks to this bizarre situation, so the American units encountered strong resistance from a poorly-trained opponent armed only with light infantry weapons, but nevertheless determined and familiar with the terrain. Of course, due to the enormous material superiority, the ratio of African losses was many times greater, but given that euro-American public opinion is much more sensitive to losses, it could be clearly spoken of as a failure. The units were withdrawn, and General Aidid, who until then was losing the civil war and practically controlled only the capital, significantly strengthened himself and became the president. Many things that a thoughtful filmmaker could incorporate into the film, and which would be worth it, are simply missing. It would be worth asking where the captive arms dealer obtained the material with which he supplied Aidid's militiamen, and so on. But as I already mentioned, Scott is taking a different path. The result is a film that could be broadcast with positive responses anytime on Fox News station and that American recruiters could successfully show to those interested in joining the army. Overall impression: 75%.
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Scott is like a chameleon, give him a genre, and he'll make you an unforgettable cinematic gem. He's done it with Alien and with Gladiator, and now with the story of an elite military unit in the middle of the Somali inferno. This is no intellectual epic or hidden metaphor, it's simply two and a half hours of the best, most realistic and best filmed action imaginable.
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About 15 American soldiers and give or take a bajillion Somalis die in the film, with the focus on the dying Americans occupying over twenty minutes of the film in total and the shots of the dying Somalis about 40 seconds. I didn't care about any of the characters (okay, except Sizemore, but I knew nothing would happen to him), and I didn't care about the heroes throwing grenades in exactly the same shot as the athletes throwing the javelin in Triumph of the Will. Of course, I don't give a shit, and I pretty much welcome recruitment films, because then there'll be enough material for more movies about botched military actions that can be handled by someone like Ridley Scott and I’ll be able to sit there for two and a half hours, snorting loudly with delight and thanking God that there are so many Somalis that the movie will still take over an hour. There were certain passages where I seriously considered sending my fellow viewer home, user Marla Singer, because I was jealous of the fact that she was watching the film in Blu-ray quality with me. The incredible gradation of some of the scenes, the perfectionist work with the shot, the well-used filters, the surprisingly slower editing, the believable brutality. War is beautiful.
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