Black Hawk Down really surprised me. No, it shocked me. I expected the usual patriotic we're-heroes-and-we-love-it stuff, but I was wrong. BHD tells the story from the soldiers point of view, how they suffer, how they are overrun and how they die. We... (read more) Black Hawk Down really surprised me. No, it shocked me. I expected the usual patriotic we're-heroes-and-we-love-it stuff, but I was wrong. BHD tells the story from the soldiers point of view, how they suffer, how they are overrun and how they die. We get to see everything, whether it's Jamie bleeding to death, a dying Ruiz telling Captain Steele not go out without him or the horror in Eversman's eyes when he sees the Black Hawk going down. Through all the bullets and blood the film is asking: well what did you expect? This is what war is like. And in combat not everything goes the way it's supposed to go (they actually can't find the right way). Other movies give the impression that soldiers are no human being, like they don't have feeling, they are never scared and so on. But the nervousness shortly before the mission starts corrects that. The scene in which Blackburn falls out of the helicopter is a good example that even the excellent training can't prevent mistakes from happening. No supermen in the army, "just" normal people.

The film is not into politics and this is what makes it so incredibly good. Like Hoot says "once the first bullet goes past your head, the politics go right out of the window". And once the first bullet goes past our head (you really get the feeling you're standing in Mog) we stop thinking about whether it was wrong or right or too late to send troops to Somalia. During the film this is only background information, but as soon as it is over, the knowledge of the fact that this really happened and that even the names of the characters are authentic comes back with all force.

Ridley Scott and the screenwriters truly delivered on this one; excellent cinematography and soundtrack as well.

You want to see a good, believable war movie? Watch this.

Neglects to show how Clinton let the war prisoners loose afterwards. And why use Ewan McGregor from the Uk and Orlando Bloom from Australia as US soldiers? Overall, not too bad, though.

The film makers honor these men by doing there best to TELL IT LIKE IT IS.

A great true war movie, the battle in somalia where army rangers and delta force hold off thousands of somalia malitia, directed by a superb director Ridley Scott who always comes up trumps excellent movie and a great cast !!!!

The best modern warfare movie I've seen so far!

Films like this are more useful than gung-ho capers like Behind Enemy Lines. They help audiences understand and sympathize with the actual experiences of combat troops, instead of trivializing them into entertainments.

The action is so rivetingly orchestrated, the crazed chaos of it so palpable, that the movie sucks you in.

This huge $90 million undertaking is a personal best for producer Jerry Bruckheimer, a triumph for Scott and a war film of prodigious power.