Scott described the film as ‘anti-war, but pro-military’ and that is certainly true. There’s no single star-lead protagonist, but a team of individual heroes. There’s no sentimental bullshit; showing the families back home or close-ups of American flags fluttering in the wind. Instead Scott bravely removes these genre clichés and replaces them with the gritty reality of war.

Typically of Scott there’s an incredible attention to detail, with even something as small as a hot shell casing burning a soldier’s skin reflecting the terrors of war. The film is, in every aspect, beautiful in its creation. From the diversified camera angles of Sławomir Idziak’s breathtaking cinematography and the exemplary slow-motion sequences of Pietro Scalia’s edit to the sound team’s elaborate design and Hans Zimmer’s stunning score, Black Hawk Down is a gloriously immersive piece of cinema, a joy to watch and ultimately a masterpiece of its genre.

Man, war looks really, really bad.

So cool the way the US Army brings hope and freedom everywhere it lands. I wish they could bring peace to all nations, but not all nations have oil lol. America is the bestest planet in all of the nation.

This really isn't my cup of tea so I'll be brief. The movie is incredibly tense and visceral, although it doesn't quite reach the level of something like Saving Private Ryan. It is also mostly on the right side of its politics with regards to war in general and the Battle of Mogadishu specifically (this half is a bit fuzzier). But for me there's just way too much of this:

Shot: people shooting guns
Reverse-shot: bullets ricocheting off of stuff
Shot: people shooting guns
Reverse-shot: people falling over
Shot: people shooting guns
Reverse-shot: stuff exploding

I don't mean to disparage the film or its fans, I just prefer a different style of action movie.

Ridley Scott Ranked

"Only the dead have seen the end of war."
(Plato)

ADRENALINE PUMPING WAR WHICH RENOUNCES EVERYTHING UNNECESSARY, TO TELL A PURE BLOODBOILING STORY THROUGH THE GREAT VISUALIZATION

The cast was just a competition to see which Englishman could pull off the best American accent

65

In terms of 'that guy' casting, this is up there with JFK and Oppenheimer. For the first thirty minutes, every other scene reveals a new famous face to freak out about. Then Ridley Scott decides that's enough for an introduction and the rest of the film is tactical sensory overload, with militarized abstraction so vivid and skilled that it inspired a whole new era of Michael Bay's style by proxy. Not a great movie necessarily, but a highly influential item in frenzied action cinema and Xbox 360 first person shooters.

hoo-ah i guess?

i don't know what to say really - it's a very technically impressive movie but the idea that this is anti-war feels like such nonsense to me. it's happy to abandon facts and nuance to show the american soldiers (who i could barely tell apart despite recognising most of the pretty stacked cast) as courageous, brave, stoic warriors for peace and virtue (?!), willing to do all of the killing necessary to rescue their brothers in arms from a swelling mass of nameless somali soldiers.

i just really struggle to get invested in war movie narratives when they're presented like this (see also: 1917, dunkirk).

just to double check, war is the bad one right