Starting with the old "based on true events" tag, we continue to shots of starving and dead people while the subtitles give us some very brief background.
There's not a huge amount to say about this one, really. The story is alright, the visuals do their job, but nothing stands out hugely from the run of the mill early naughties war movie set meal. The plot is predictable and the acting is mostly bland.There are many recognisable faces, but none of them manage to stand out on acting skill alone. The characters fall into stereotypes too easily, and I don't really care about what happens to them. After about fifty minutes of character introduction and scene setting I still don't care, and just want to see some action. It doesn't help that we see solely through the eyes of the Americans. It would have been nice to see the points of view of Mohamed or some of his men. Even the Somalian guy who's working for the Americans as a pointer gets very few lines, and is basically just made fun of by command.
Effects and acting wise the film can easily keep your attention, once the action starts, and you can tell that a fair amount of money has been thrown at it. It feels like the kind of crap that happens during a game of battlefield, from which I found myself recognising helicopters and weapons. They get the confusion of close warfare across well, and seem intent on getting across the "we're not allowed to shoot at them until they shoot at us" rule, which the movie portrays as a dumb one (which kinda leaves a sour taste in my mouth, but whatever). There are several nice little details, like when a hot shell casing falls down a soldier's shirt, and he curses and he fumbles to retrieve it, and the guy being deafened by the other guy's gun being shot right near his ear.
I like the look of some of the native cars. Very 'Mad Max'.
The music is full of drums and chugs along with the action nicely. It is a little eye rolling at times, with the cliche African music playing over shots of Somali soldiers. I think to balance it they should have played some Bruce Springsteen over the shots of the American helicopters, or something. The dreamlike sequence towards the end as they run through the dust with the laughing children is excellent, as are many of the night shots, with the close green lighting.
Not a bad war movie, but not a very good Ridley Scott movie.
Black Hawk Down: 41.0