Movie Review: 'Black Hawk Down'

(C) 2001, 2006 Sony Pictures/Sony Home Entertainment

On February 10, 1999, the Atlantic Monthly Press published Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden, a staff writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer.  Based on a 29-part series of articles Bowden wrote for the newspaper in the late '90s, Black Hawk Down was the first in-depth book about Operation Gothic Serpent, the mission that pitted 150 Army Rangers, Delta Force operators, and helicopter crews from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) against thousands of Somali gunmen in the infamous First Battle of Mogadishu (October 3-4, 1993), which the Somalis refer to as Maaliniti Rangers (Day of the Rangers).

The original hardcover edition. (C) 1999 Atlantic Monthly Press

Bowden's book earned critical acclaim for its vivid description of the most ferocious fighting American forces were involved with since Vietnam; 19 U.S. servicemen were killed, 73 were wounded, and Michael Durant, a helicopter pilot, was captured when his UH-60 was shot down by Somali militiamen led by the warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid. Critics praised the author for telling the story of the fierce firefight from various perspectives, including that of the Habr Gidr clan led by Aidid, as well as that of the American and other United Nations personnel involved in that star-crossed mission.

Even before the hardcover edition was out in bookstores, producer Jerry Bruckheimer bought the film rights to Black Hawk Down and gave Bowden - who had never written a screenplay -  the opportunity to adapt the book himself. The author wrote the first draft after reading how-to books on screenwriting. Per The Essence of Combat featurettes in the Blu-ray release, Bowden's version of the script was given to Ken Nolan, a young writer who had written a few spec scripts for Warner Bros. and Universal; Black Hawk Down was his first produced screenplay. (Other writers, including Schindler List scribe Steven Zaillian and actor-writer Eric Roth, contributed to the final script, and one scene from Bowden's draft survived, but Nolan's name is the only one in the movie's credits.)

Ridley Scott (Alien, Gladiator) wasn't attached to Black Hawk Down originally; Simon West (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) initiated the project in 1999 when he told Bruckheimer to buy the movie rights to Bowden's then-unpublished book as West's next directing assignment. However, West decided to direct Tomb Raider instead, so Bruckheimer offered Black Hawk Down to Scott, who was fresh off the success of Gladiator. 

Black Hawk Down is a film that, like the book, tells the story of the Battle of the Black Sea (another sobriquet given to the First Battle of Mogadishu by Somalis) from the perspective of the American participants. As such, it's an ensemble movie that features performances by Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana, William Fichtner, Jason Isaacs, Sam Shepard, and Nicolaj Coster-Waldau.

And like most based-on-a-true-story war films, Black Hawk Down has to make a complex narrative easier to follow in its 144 minutes' running time. In the book, there are 100 key figures who were interviewed or written about in great detail; the film pares this number down to nearly 40.

The film is set mostly between the afternoon of October 3, 1993, and part of the next day, although there is a short prologue that serves to both set up the story and introduces some of the characters in Black Hawk Down. These include:

• Staff Sergeant Matt Eversmann (Josh Hartnett)
• Chief Warrant Officer Mike Durant (Ron Eldard)
• Chief Warrant Officer Cliff "Elvis" Wolcott (Jeremy Piven)
• Major General John Garrison (Sam Shepard)
• Private First Class Todd Blackburn (Orlando Bloom)
• Captain Michael Steele (Jason Isaacs)
• Sergeant Dominick Pilla (Danny Hoch)
• Specialist Lance Twombly (Tom Hardy)
• Sergeant First Class Norm "Hoot" Gibson (Eric Bana)
• Specialist John "Grimesy" Grimes* (Ewan McGregor)

My Take

Though Black Hawk Down takes artistic license with some of the details (the capture of  Aidid financier Osnan Atto, depicted in the prologue, did not occur as bloodlessly as the movie suggests, and none of the soldiers involved taped name tags to their Army-issue Kevlar helmets), it depicts the bloody and controversial events that embarrassed the Clinton Administration, caused the resignation of Defense Secretary Les Aspin, and expedited the withdrawal of American military forces from Somalia, thus ending a peacekeeping mission that began with good intentions (to end the famine caused by Somalia's ongoing civil war) and ended with public outrage caused by the news that 19 U.S. soldiers were killed, two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, and one pilot was held captive by the very people America and the rest of the world sought to assist.  

The film had a limited release in December of 2001 to qualify for that year's Academy Awards nominations; I saw it at the now-closed AMC 14 Theater at the Mall of the Americas in Miami when it entered wide release two months later, and I purchased Black Hawk Down on both DVD  (in 2002) and Blu-ray (sometime after 2008, the year I bought my first Samsung Blu-ray player). 

Like Saving Private Ryan, this is not a movie that I watch often. It's extremely well-done and features an ensemble of U.S. and European actors that includes Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbor), Ron Eldard (ER), Jeremy Piven (Entourage),  Tom Hardy (his first film role), Jason Isaacs (another Britisher who "does" a really good American accent), the late actor and playwright Sam Shepard, and Ewan McGregor. And, of course, it's directed by Ridley Scott, the guy who created the Alien franchise and has made an eclectic mix of visually stunning and diverse movies. 

But like Steven Spielberg's now-classic World War II men-at-war movie, Black Hawk Down shows war in gritty, bloody, and often violent detail. There's lots of simulated gore in this dramatization of Bowden's now-classic work of modern war reporting, including a shot of a Ranger's thumb being nearly severed by a Somali's AK-47, scores of civilians cut down by both Aidid's militia (in the prologue) and American soldiers. Some are innocent bystanders or victims of clan warfare, while others are Aidid followers who join in the fight against the Rangers even though they are poorly armed. 

I also don't watch Black Hawk Down frequently because it is a tragedy of epic proportions; hundreds of people were killed or injured on both sides during Maaliniti Rangers. And while both sides claimed victory (the Rangers did achieve the immediate objective of the day's planned raid, but it was a Pyrrhic victory at best; the Hadr Gibr clan could claim it successfully defended "national sovereignty," but Somalia is now a "failed state" out of a Mad Max movie a quarter century after the Battle of the Black Sea), no one won in the end. 

That having been said, Black Hawk Down is well-made, has excellent production values, and highlights good, solid performances from its multinational cast. And, except for the scenes where the two UH-60s are hit by enemy fire and crash, the film drips with authenticity throughout many of the recreations of the 18-hour fight. This is not just because the actors went through a short version of the Ranger training course or because the Army's 160th SOAR and members of the 75th Ranger Regiment appear onscreen during key scenes. It's also because the producers, with a few exceptions, strove to stick close to Bowden's book instead of going "all Hollywood" and taking too much artistic license with history. 

* Per the Pentagon's request, the producers and writers had to change Ranger John Stebbins' name to the fictitious one of "John Grimes." Stebbins was one of the heroes of Mogadishu; he earned a Silver Star for continuing to fight even after being hit several times by Somali gunfire and was literally dragged from the field of battle by his fellow medics. However, in 1999 Stebbins was found guilty by an Army court-martial of raping a child under the age of 12 - his own daughter.  One of the preconditions for the Army's cooperation in the making of the film was the changing of the man's name, a condition that I agree was justified, all things considered.