"Only the dead have seen the end of war."
(Plato)

ADRENALINE PUMPING WAR WHICH RENOUNCES EVERYTHING UNNECESSARY, TO TELL A PURE BLOODBOILING STORY THROUGH THE GREAT VISUALIZATION

Hi everybody, in a discussion of which are probably the 10 best movies of each genre, Hendrik and a mutual dear friend are always ranking "Black Hawk Down" to the best war movies ever made. Only with the intension to finally can say something to the topic too and with no big expectation I have been watching this pic until the second I'm writing this. And wow... I'm more than impressed, literally hyped how great this experience was watching this great movie, which Ridley Scott described as an anti-war but pro military movie,…

Buckle up, because I'm about to spend entirely too much effort on this interesting-thanks-to-its-misguidedness piece of art.

To begin, let's explore this phrase that's been repeatedly tossed around with reference to Black Hawk Down:

"Black Hawk Down is anti-war but pro-military."

Right out the gate, I'm gonna go ahead and say I think this is a paradoxical statement and one that relies almost entirely on the conflation of people who are in the military with "the military" as an independent entity containing those people.

This is about as realistic or coherent as saying "anti-Holocaust but pro-Nazi," "anti-gasoline but pro-gasoline company," "anti-religion but pro-church," "anti-reading but pro-readers," etc. Plainly, it makes no sense.

If what people mean by this (and from…

Scott's fetish for and power over this material is staggering; structurally it's his ZODIAC, for good or ill, buffered by Idziak's incredibly tactile transmissions of hot metal and black smoke. furthermore it plays today like an accidentally prescient microcosm of blowback from the 12 years of American hegemonic intervention that's come since (and reflects our complicated response to same). the first act repeatedly questions both our and the soldiers' relationship to the violence they're about to inflict before necessarily tossing that "out the window" for a purely subjective survival narrative. in order to protect themselves and their fellows, the soldiers can simply no longer allow themselves to consider the political ramifications of this event or the earthshaking loss of life…

Observing the abject futility of war, Ridley Scott's "Black Hawk Down" is a dour contemporary epic that embraces the acts of heriosm and violence that undergird military conflict. On a visual canvas of blood, sweat, smoke, and sand, Scott's film unfolds as those acts cancel one another out, creating an unceasing whirlpool of death and loss. Not shying away from the tribal and personal costs of conflict, "Black Hawk Down" results in a searing experience.

Unfolding in Somalia, 1993, "Black Hawk Down" focuses on a group of Rangers thrown into action when a U.S. gunship is shot down. Facing intense fighting from groundforces, the American soldiers work to both survive and save their comrades.

The narrative is not necessarily concerned…

I don't really understand why this film is as acclaimed as it is. In my opinion, it failed in everything it was trying to do, and just ended up leaving me bored and a bit underwhelmed. I doubt I will want to rewatch it any time soon, for a number of reasons:

Firstly, it's very long. Black Hawk Down (or at least the cut I watched) comes in at just under 2.5 hours, which felt like a very indulgent runtime. Unfortunately, I can't say that the film's length ever felt justified, either. The pacing of the film is strange, with no action taking place in the first 45 minutes, and then the rest of the film being concerned almost entirely…

What Black Hawk Down does, it does very well. Alas, what it does is also not a great deal. The film concentrates almost exclusively on US soldiers getting shot at by a mass of nameless angry Somali bodies, which means this movie contains ninety straight minutes of gunfire. What hell is this.

The cast of Ridley Scott’s film is, seen retrospectively, an all star ensemble, with Trainspotting’s Renton and Spud now helicopter buddies, as is fellow Brit Tom Hardy. Some other blokes are in there too. Yet it doesn’t overly matter who is beneath the helmet because most of the fighters look identical and lack back stories. They are the traditional cannon fodder, albeit allegedly well trained. Although it almost…