|  | Director: Ridley Scott
Actors: Josh Hartnett, Ewan Mcgregor, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana, William Fichtner
Category: DVD
Buy New: $43.67
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1014 reviews
Sales Rank: 141139
Format: Pal
Languages: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired), Dutch (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Hindi (Subtitled), English (Original Language), Somali (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Discs: 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.6
EAN: 5035822270831
ASIN: B00005U8P3
Theatrical Release Date: January 18, 2002
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| Customer Reviews:
 THE "MOG" AT GROUND ZERO, RIDLEY SCOTTS' SHINING MOMENT December 3, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Only two movies steer you into ground zero combat, this movie and Saving
Private Ryan. A great translation of the book Black Hawk Down, done by Ridley Scott. This movie shows the sweat, blood, dust, clinging to a group of Rangers as they fight to survive in urban combat. A regular group of grunts would have suffered much higher casualties on this Special Ops mission. Early in the film, Ewan McGregor tells a young ranger (Orlando Bloom) reporting in, "Welcome to the Mog", short for
Mogadishu.
This is a visual trip into Mogadishu, Somalia. You are surrounded by the eerie city with its' sights and sounds warning of trouble ahead for American forces. This film digs in deep and shows the baptism under fire of a young soldier fighting off fear and panic. (A normal process in battle) Delta Force Sgts. thinking on the run to keep their men alive.
You feel and sense a mini "Alamo" taking place, when the men are surrounded in the city streets and cut off from chopper evacuation. The courage and creed of the Rangers keeps them alive. Your heart goes out to a medic who is working to save a rangers' life. Blocking out the noise of gunfire, he works frantically to prevent shock and blood loss, trying to prevent death. Different scenes portray the canvas of combat, showing how a prisoner snatch operation turns into chaos, planning goes out the window, and survival looks dim, tied up in politics and uncertainty.
The original book is read at West Point and studied by the next group of officers. Regardless of politics, this is a salute to the Rangers and their creed-- "Leave no man behind".
One hell of a good war action movie! November 28, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Last week, including the weekend, I watched three great war action movies on television, namely:
1) 'Black Hawk Down', starring Josh Hartnett, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana;
2) 'Behind Enemy Lines', starring Owen Wilson, Gene Hackman;
3) 'Tears of the Sun', starring Bruce Willis, Monica Bellucci, Tom Skerritt;
The first movie was based on an actual event that took place in Mogadishu, Somalia on the African continent in October 1993 during the Clinton presidency.
The second movie was apparently a fictional adaptation of an actual event that supposedly took place during the Bosnia-Serbia conflict.
The third movie was more of a fictional account that had the starvation-ravaged Nigeria caught in an ethnic civil war as a background setting.
In the war action movie, 'Black Hawk Down', directed by Ridley Scott (behind 'Gladiator', 'Blake Runner'), an elite team of some hundred US Army Rangers & Delta Force operatives were dropped deep into the capital city of Somalia, Mogadishu one day in October 1993.
It was the stronghold of the powerful warlord, Mohammed Farrah Aidid, who had been hijacking International Red Cross food shipments at the ports with the intention to used them as bargaining chips with the United Nations.
The mission was to capture two top lieutenants of the warlord.
It was perceived as a quick straight-forward extraction, 30 minutes the most, but it turned out to be a 18-hour nightmarish ordeal for the US soldiers on the ground.
Probably due to poor intelligence, they soon found themselves separated on the ground - & outnumbered - in a desperate street corner battle with a large group of heavily-armed Somali gunmen, following the early unexpected destruction of two of their Black Hawk rescue helicopters.
For the next 90 minutes or so, the entire movie then traced the heroic efforts by other fellow army rangers to rescue their comrades (Well, they certainly lived up to their military creed 'Leave No Man Behind'), starting with Sgt. Eversmann (Josh Hartnett), commanding one unit named Chalk IV & leading his men to the first Black Hawk crash site...
to Warrant Officer Durant (Ron Eldard), who was the only survivor of the second Black Hawk crash site & who was captured by Somali gunmen...
to the gung-ho Lt. Col. McKnight (Tom Sizemore) who led a rescue convoy only to get lost in an unforgiving city...
to Sgt. Sanderson (William Fichner) who was desperately trying to reach the first Black Hawk crash site...
to Staff Sgt. Yurek (Tom Guiry) who led two fellow Rangers, Nelson (Ewen Bremmer) & Twanbly (Tom Hardy) to meet up with their squad, Chalk IV, at the first Black Hawk crash site.
With all the bullets whizzing past & explosive sounds of gunfire, & of course, empty shells with blood splattering all over the bodies as well as places, the movie was quite confusing at first, as it was difficult to track who was who, although the soldiers' names were tagged to their individual helmets.
The gritty realism of the movie really put me into the middle of hellish horror faced by all the young US solders.
There were chilling moments, for example:
[When Warrant Officer Durant was captured & brought for interrogation]
Durrant: "My government will never negotiate for me."
Interrogator: "Then perhaps you & I can negotiate, huh? Soldier to soldier."
Durant: "I am not in charge."
Interrogator: "Course not, you have the power to kill, but not negotiate. In Somalia, killing is negotiation."
The following further comment by the interrogator really exposed the harsh reality of the situation:
"Do you think if you get General Aidid, we will simply put down our weapons & adopt American democracy? That the killing will stop? We know this, without victory, there will be no peace. There will always be killing, see? This is how things are in our world."
There were also some comic moments. For example:
[During a cross fire near the Black Hawk crash site.]
Grimes: "Why aren't you shooting?"
Waddell: "We're not being shot at yet."
Grimes: "How can you tell?"
Waddell: "A hiss means it's close. A snap means..."
[A bullet whizzed past, pretty close.]
Waddell: "Now, they're shooting at us!"
[They began returning fire.]
For me, this intense movie certainly captured the emotional fears, raw courage & selfless heroism of the US soldiers against nearly insurmountable odds.
At the end, nineteen of them perished, not counting probably the thousands of Somali people who also died in the cross fire.
I enjoyed watching the movie, for the reasonably good acting, despite the fact that the movie did not centre on any single character, the pulsating action sequences, the comic as well as tearful moments, & the beautiful cinematography.
I particularly like the dialogue towards the ending, when Sgt. Norm Hooten (Eric Bana) said to Sgt. Eversmann (Josh Hartnett):
"When I go home, people will ask me, "Hey, Hoot, why do you do it, man? What, you some kind of a war junkie?" You know what I'll say? I won't say a goddamn word. Why? They won't understand why we do it. They won't understand that it's about the men next to you, & that's all it is."
What a profound response from a true soldier as well as a good human being.
The final scene through the film credits was also very poignant, as I watched nineteen coffins slowly being loaded on to a 130-Hercules transport, with the loading ramp slowly closing.
I believe the opening quote from Plato at the movie's beginning, "Only the dead have seen an end to war," truly reflects my emotional sentiments about the movie.
According to history, it was the Malaysian and Pakistani contingents based in Somalia under the United Nations command that actually made the final rescue & eventually escorted the surviving US Army rangers & Delta Force operatives out of harm's way.
[In that final scene, it was quite funny, & scary at the same time too, to watch the surviving US soldiers, seemingly exhausted, having to run on foot, & obviously unprotected, behind the escort convoy, with a ragtag group of Somali gunmen on pick-up trucks chasing them.]
This vital part of history was apparently downplayed in the movie. I guess that's Hollywood's prerogative.
My end analysis: this is one hell of a good war action movie to watch!
To sum up all the three war action movies in the foregoing posts, I want to take this opportunity to share with readers a dedication statement I had learned - & remembered - since my secondary school days. It came from Sir Winston Churchill, the wartime British Prime Minister:
"Never in the field of human conflict, have so many owed so much to so few."
So, dear readers, please go & watch the three foregoing war action movies. You will be delighted.
Black Hawk Down November 24, 2007
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have a copy of this, and bought this to give my grandson. I think this was pretty accurate.
One of the Best November 19, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Blackhawk Down is one of the best movies of all time! It is the most realistic, gritty, and true to life war movie that I have ever seen! The cinematics are amazing because this was produced with little or no computer graphics. It is so intense that you feel as if you are in the actual war instead of a bystander. It is a must for any action/war movie lover! The best!
Difficult to watch, couldn't stop watching. October 22, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I first saw BHD because I am a Ridley Scott fan. When the "incident" in Somalia actually happened, I could not bring myself to watch the news footage. The movie somehow put it on a level that made it accessible to me even though the pain was intense. Definitely on a par with "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan."
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