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| by Kevin Alcox Columbus Wired Reporter In times of tragedy, of which the United States is currently involved daily a movie such as Black Hawk Down can be released with many mixed reviews. However, the majority of the critics and filmgoers will agree that this film is an accurate and intense description of war and gives us a look at everything we overlook when demanding justice. Black Hawk Down, based on a novel by Mark Bowden, is a true story of events occurring in 1993 when U.S. Special Forces had been sent into Somalia to aid in Red Cross efforts. The movies main story line is a span of about 40 hours when a raid took place in efforts to capture main leaders of a group trying to seize control of the government. These militia leaders where in control of the county and at the same time causing the starvation of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. During the mission, which took place in the middle of a town controlled by the militia, problems occurred and as a result a Black Hawk Helicopter was hit and crashed about six blocks from the raid location. Rescue efforts were immediately formed but problems continued to mount and U.S. lives continued to be risked and lost. As for a review of this movie, two points must be established when analyzing a movie such as this. First, you must look at the actual film making aspects of the movie and how the story line was set up and maintained visually. Second, the content of the movie and the underlying moral questions that were present must be examined. The actual filmmaking and how from a strictly entertainment view of the movie kept the interest of myself and other film going fans is the most important aspect of a movie in Hollywood, but is that the most important thing in a movie such as this. Black Hawk Down was a war movie unlike most war movies. In recent past movies have been released showing tragic events of past wars such as Saving Private Ryan (WWII), Pearl Harbor (WWII), and Thin Red Line (WWII). These movies had too many things in common other than WWII. First, their casting alone overshadowed the movie and the true characters they were supposed to play. Famous actors like Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Cuba Gooding Jr., Alec Baldwin, Nick Nolte, George Clooney, John Travolta, and Sean Penn were stars in the movies listed above and in a way made the movie more unrealistic causing its audience to concentrate more on the entertainment value of the movie rather than the message being portrayed through the script. Black Hawk Down on the other hand is a movie where its actors did not overshadow the script of the characters they were representing. Don't get me wrong, the actors are known and recognizable, but more in a sense of "hey it's that guy from that movie". Also the story line was not that of fiction, the story obviously based on a true story of events was not made into a deeper script, as were Pearl Harbor and Saving Private Ryan. Of course for entertainment value this may not be the best way of going about keeping the audiences attention. Usually when a true story is released it has its moment of truth, but always has a feel good story behind it so that the viewers leave with a sense of agreement with the director and the point he or she is trying to get across. In this movie it was hard for me as a critic and a viewer to really narrow down the moral opinion of war Ridley Scott (Director) was trying to get across. Through some research I found out that his purpose for this movie was not to gain support for the current war America is battling against terrorism, but in fact the opposite. He actually filmed this movie objecting to war in a sense. Not to say he does not agree that action needs to be taken against people that harm our country or any one for that matter. Though he did want to bring to the attention of American citizens what these actions against others consist of and the tragic results of many of these retaliations. To often the country is blind to the actions that America takes in other countries and until another Vietnam disaster takes place, people not involved directly in the war will go on thinking that war is like a game of tag in some aspect, when it is much more than that. To sum this up, the entertainment value of Black Hawk Down is unchallenged by any other movie currently in theaters, but what I enjoyed more about this movie is the deep moral theories, questions and values discussed by the scripts description of war. Stars (out of 5): 4
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