Black Hawk Down (2001)


Brutal military drama by Ridley Scott that details the US involvement in the 1993 civil war in Somalia.

A UN taskforce is sent into Mogadishu to capture the leader of the militia, Mohamed Farrah Hassan Aidid. It sounds straightforward enough, but the mission goes horribly wrong when a US helicopter is shot down. Chaos ensues, and the Americans seem naive and ill-prepared. You know there isn’t going to be a simple resolution or a happy ending.

The film is extremely violent – sometimes almost unbearably so. In no way does it glamorise war (you see body parts galore), but – perhaps inevitably – it does only show it from the Americans’ perspective.

The ensemble cast has no real star or focal point. This has the benefit of making it about the team rather than any one “hero”.

Being a Ridley Scott film, it looks stunning and the soldiers’ relentless, harrowing experience of being under constant attack is detailed brilliantly.

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