I was 13 when I first understood how important good character development was to a story. Martin Sheen’s portrayal of President Kennedy in the 1983 mini-series of the same name was so effective, so realistic, that the concluding scenes in Texas moved me to sadness -- obligating me to grieve for a man who had died some six years before my birth. Over the course of my movie-watching years, there have been a handful of films that have sparked the same reaction from the pit of my stomach.

Though its depiction of what happened in Somalia in 1993 is unflinchingly visceral, and instills a feeling of profound shellshock, Black Hawk Down fails to offer characters that the audience could become emotionally attached to. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Ridley Scott do their best by casting recognizable stars. But death takes only those who are rendered unrecognizable by identical crew cuts and camouflaged fatigues. Ultimately, I could not grieve because I didn’t know who to grieve for.

Of course, attractive, recognizable faces are only half of the equation; elements of personality that don’t ring false need to be added to the mix. Looking down the film’s roster, only Tom Sizemore’s Lieutenant Colonel McNight, Josh Hartnett’s Matt Eversman, and Sam Shepard’s Major General Garrison come close to breaking out of their two-dimensional roles. And though Ewan McGregor nails his southern brogue, his coffee-grinding Grimes rides the line of being a superficial caricature.

Some may argue that Black Hawk Down presents an improvement over Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, but I disagree. From a level of popcorn entertainment, Gladiator’s pace and characters are more enjoyable and more easily digestible. There is little doubt that Black Hawk Down offers a huge improvement in terms of writing, characters, and direction when compared to Bruckheimer’s atrocious Pearl Harbor. The difference between Ridley Scott's and Michael Bay’s stylized camera work is that Scott knows how to tell a story with the camera. Michael Bay is like a kid with a new toy who’s just looking for the coolest way to use it.

With the exception of obvious MPEG noise in the opening sand-soaked sequence, the film’s excellent production values are well preserved in the DVD transfer. The high contrast offers a washed-out look that has become commonplace amongst desert-location war films (i.e., David Russell’s Three Kings). The picture is sharp and exhibits good black levels. Audio is good, if not a bit lean sounding. Sound effects and dialogue were, however, clean and very intelligible. One pleasant surprise is an atypically restrained Hans Zimmer score, which takes second fiddle to a selection of well-chosen popular songs. Given that Scott’s Gladiator sported a DTS track, the absence of one on Black Hawk Down is a mystery. The Dolby Digital track is fine, but DTS may have offered that last ounce of slam and bang.

You get a sense of when a DVD is rushed into production. With the exception of an OK featurette, the extras on this DVD were abysmal. Between the zero extras and the lack of DTS, I’m guessing this is not the last "edition" of this film we’ll see.