Black Hawk Down (2001)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Ridley Scott

Writers (WGA):

Mark Bowden (book)
Ken Nolan (screenplay)

Release Date:

18 January 2002 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | War

Tagline:

Rangers Lead the Way.

Plot:

123 elite U.S. soldiers drop into Somalia to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord and find themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily-armed Somalis.

Plot Keywords:

Helicopter | Somalia | Warlord | Mogadishu | Army Rangers

Awards:

Won 2 Oscars. Another 4 wins & 29 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Sun. July 5	2:00 PM	Fox
Sat. July 11	1:00 PM	MyNetwork

Cast

Josh Hartnett	...	Eversmann
Ewan McGregor	...	Grimes
Tom Sizemore	...	McKnight
Eric Bana	...	Hoot
William Fichtner	...	Sanderson
Ewen Bremner	...	Nelson
Sam Shepard	...	Garrison
Gabriel Casseus	...	Kurth
Kim Coates	...	Wex
Hugh Dancy	...	Schmid
Ron Eldard	...	Durant
Ioan Gruffudd	...	Beales
Tom Guiry	...	Yurek (as Thomas Guiry)
Charlie Hofheimer	...	Smith
Danny Hoch	...	Pilla

Also Known As:

La caída del halcón negro (Argentina) (Colombia) (Mexico) (Peru) [es]
Black Hawk Down (Austria) (Germany) [de]
La chute du faucon noir (Canada: French title) (France) [fr]
A sólyom végveszélyben (Hungary) [hu]
Black Hawk derribado (Spain) [es]
Falcão Negro em Perigo (Brazil) [pt]
Helikopter w ogniu (Poland) [pl]
Isku Mogadishuun (Finland) [fi]
Kara sahin düstü (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
Mavro geraki - I katarripsi (Greece) [el]
Pad crnog jastreba (Serbia) [sr]

MPAA:

Rated R for intense, realistic, graphic war violence, and for language.

Runtime:

144 min | Germany:142 min | USA:152 min (extended version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Somali

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS (8 channels)

Certification:

Malaysia:18SG | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Portugal:M/16 | India:A | Argentina:16 | Australia:MA (re-rating on appeal) | Australia:R (original rating) | Brazil:14 | Canada:18A | Finland:K-15 | France:-12 | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:IIB | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:R16 | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Philippines:PG-13 | Singapore:NC-16 | South Korea:15 | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:16 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:16 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | USA:R (certificate #38095) | Iceland:16

Filming Locations:

Kénitra Airbase, Morocco

Company:

Revolution Studios

Trivia:

'Eric Bana''s US film debut. He found the experience to be an ultra-realistic one and said he frequently forgot that they were only making a movie.

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the scene where Grimes is covering Sanderson and fires his weapon towards Somalis with heavy machine gun mounted on a car (about 1:23), we can see the soldier who was ordered to cover Sanderson yelling "I'm jammed!" but his lips do not move at all.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Dan Busch: There. Technicals, nine o'clock.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Strength and Honor: Creating the World of 'Gladiator' (2005) (V)

Soundtrack:

Dhibic Roob

We were soldiers AND made a great film...

Black Hawk Down is first and foremost an immensely effective war film, but beyond that, its one of the most subtly differently made war films ever. Most war films usually either have a single hero through whom we see everything (i.e. Platoon), or present us with a squad of soldiers, all of whom are identifiable "types" (i.e. Saving Private Ryan). Black Hawk Down takes a different approach, instead giving us a very wide array of characters, none clearly singled out as a hero or type to command the audience's attention. The general effect is to create that feeling of a team army that George C. Scott so ardently expounded to us at the start of Patton. Furthering this feel of military professionalism, the film never cheapens itself by putting too much emotional weight into one moment. The plot moves ahead at a constant pace, cutting from location to location, without slowing down to focus too much on individual soldiers. The effect is of watching documentary footage of a real military operation gone wrong. While the effect of this scripting approach may produce some detachment among viewers on the first viewing, it makes the film all the better on subsequent viewings.

And you'd better believe there will be subsequent viewings, because Ridley Scott has created one of cinema's all-time great pieces of eye candy here. The editing, cinematography, grading, scoring and visual effects all combine to leave a viewer just as drained upon leaving the theatre as these soldiers were on leaving Mogadishu. The intensity of this film's combat is easily equal to Saving Private Ryan, and leaves such pretenders as We Were Soldiers behind in the dust. Black Hawk Down lacks the former's emotional resonance, but unlike the latter, it thrives on the fact, creating a final product as mind-challenging in its construction as it is mind-blowing its visualization.