To tell this true story of the 1993 American military
mission in Somalia that went terribly wrong, Bruckheimer recruited prestigious Hollywood
director Ridley Scott, a guy whose image in recent years has been tarnished a bit by
making things like the hopelessly overblown, cartoon-like epic Gladiator (and
don’t tell me about the awards it won, because it certainly didn’t deserve many
of them). When I heard Scott made it, I wasn’t surprised. Ever since Steven Spielberg
released Saving Private Ryan with that whizzy cinematography that changed the way
war is shown on the screen, Scott has wanted to do it too. Watch Hannibal and Gladiator
and you’ll see that same newsreel-type effect of Spielberg’s being imitated over
and over again (surprising, really, because he hardly needs to imitate anyone since
he’s done some of the most dazzling-looking movies ever, like Alien and Blade
Runner). In Black Hawk Down Scott gets to go full force with stellar results,
and in the end he may have ripped off the Spielberg look, but he did it so well he may
have one-upped him too.
The surprising part of this film is that the story is told almost entirely using battle
scenes. In a lesser director’s hands, I suspect that most of the story would have
been lost amidst the action. Audiences would have left scratching their heads and
wondering what exactly went on. However, Scott pulls off a near miracle and manages to
tell a gripping story with his gritty images. The result has tremendous impact.
Black Hawk Down is not lightweight entertainment, which is why it’s so
amazing Bruckheimer’s involved at all. It’s gory, gripping, relentless, and
sometimes difficult to watch. I sat through it frustrated most of the time, not because of
the movie itself, but because of the circumstances of the characters being shown. This
film thoroughly draws you in and that’s why it’s such a success. It cuts down on
the grandstanding (although they do let a few melodramatic speeches slip in) and lets the
circumstances do the speaking. Like Saving Private Ryan, it gives audiences an
on-the-spot view of how horrific war can be. The 2002 year is starting off strong with
this ****1/2 film.
It’s hard to believe that just last year producer Jerry Bruckheimer gave
us the horrible Pearl Harbor, a war film so lightweight that it disgraced the event
it presented, and this year he gives us one of the most compelling war films in years.
Maybe Pearl Harbor taught Bruckheimer a lesson or two, including the fact that
audiences aren’t as gullible as he’d like them to be.