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.

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

Or: Vacation in Detroit

There's a Black Hawk. And it's taken down. 10/10, I guess.

n-thing "Good battle scenes, nothing else that makes it worth watching." Of course, the entire thing is battle scenes, so...I dunno. I should probably give it another go.

This film is kinda a mess, but remarkably it mostly holds together. Though we get a first 30 minutes to introduce the characters and establish geometry for the fight, 75% of this movie is pure action spectacle. I appreciate their attempt at giving the action some geography, but I quickly found myself overwhelmed and focusing mostly on the character moments. On the whole, I felt it hard to follow the larger plot, but I must commend Scott for his attention to detail and production design, I lost track of the overall story at some points.

There is a larger discussion about the politics of this film, but for my purposes I found it a competently constructed and entertaining action film with a handful of flaws. The most impressive thing might be the amazing young cast they found which went on to make a ton of amazing movies.

Dark, emotional and gritty. The one thing I didn't like was how all the characters look basically the same.

8/10

I never should have let my dad stop me from joining the Air Force

Cool movifilm about the war in Mongolia had things like shoot helicopters and shoot helicopters also obi wanton kenbobi watch if like sad but also cool and the United American States ok

War is hell.

A lot of people praise this film for not falling into tropes of war-disaster storytelling, but I think the avoidance of all of these tropes (which originated for the purpose of humanizing characters in an inhuman landscape) just makes all of the characters feel nameless, interchangeable, and two-dimensional. Which is powerful, in a way, but it also failed to make me invested in really any character. This, in turn, made it really hard to sit for two-and-a-half hours watching people I literally know or care nothing about struggle to survive. 

This is certainly a really intelligent war film that usually does a good job of keeping you interested with action to make up for the lack of dialogue/character development... But regardless - I kind of checked-out part way through this - even action is boring when you don’t care about who’s enduring it.