Black Hawk Down

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Black hawk down is the greatest film ever and the book is ace also. i love the actors the charachters the story i love the way it's so real and you feel like you are actually there with them and i love the way it's a true story!!

>>By christina   (Friday, 8 Aug 2003 22:23)



Christina, you must be an american. The movie isn't bad or anything, didn't you notice the whole thing was one big lie?! the movie depicts the american soldiers as these unsung heroes who have to fight the african hooligans in order to restore peace so that everyone can live happily ever after. BUT the truth of the matter is that America was sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. it's about time some producer/writer had the guts to face up to the fact that America isn't always the good guy when it comes to international affairs and its about time that a movie was written from the perspective of those who have suffered as a cosequence of American intervention.
Well, that's my opinion, I'm open for criticism.

>>By namrepus   (Monday, 25 Aug 2003 23:12)



It is a lot to read, but here is an excellent interactive site built around the original series of newspaper articles from the author of "Black Hawk Down":

http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/
sitemap.asp

And before simplifying this incident as one big lie, it might be helpful to understand the famine and destitution wrought by internal conflicts between Somali warlords and the ultimate emergence of Aidid and his militia forces, leading up to the international political purpose in the US military's involvement in Somalia in the first place.

"Somalia, an East African country of some 6 million, was decimated by famine and civil war in the early 1990s. International aid groups tried to help, but factional fighting and bandits halted the flow of food. Somalis were dying at an estimated rate of 1,000 per day as cargo ships were shelled, trucks were hijacked and relief workers were murdered.

In December 1992, US President George Bush announced that the US would provide the backbone of a multinational military force to secure supply lines and deliver food to the starving.

US troops were not greeted warmly when they arrived in Mogadishu, the seaport capital of Somalia. General Mohamed Farah Aidid was especially opposed to their presence. The mercurial leader of a powerful clan, Aidid could explode "like a vial of nitroglycerine," said Robert Oakley, who was then the US envoy to Somalia.

Despite the volatile situation, military intervention appeared to be helping Somalia. The new US presidential administration of Bill Clinton was determined to forge a lasting solution. Clinton's team supported the passage of UN resolution 814, expanding the mandate of UN involvement in the country.

The violence escalated on June 5, 1993, when Somalis killed 25 Pakistani soldiers in the UN force. UN forces led by US helicopters continued to attack weapon depots. Aidid's militia struck back, shooting US, Pakistani, French and Italian troops and massacring Somali civilians working for the United Nations. Thoughts of nation-building disintegrated as more deaths mounted on both sides and the political situation in Somalia grew increasingly radicalized.

The US sent crack military troops to Mogadishu, including Delta Force commandos and the 150 men of the 75th Army Rangers regiment, known as Bravo Company. Their mission: Fly helicopters to Aidid's hideout and offload troops to storm the building and hustle Aidid and his top lieutenants into waiting trucks."

Source:
www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/presents/
index.blackhawk.html

This is what led to the events recounted in the newspaper articles, and later in the movie "Black Hawk Down"...

>>By am-i-binned   (Tuesday, 26 Aug 2003 04:52)



Hi

No im am not an american. I think i'm being stalked lol hey AIB. Thanx for the links.

>>By christina   (Tuesday, 26 Aug 2003 09:46)



Not stalking, Christina... merely a case of like minds! :o)

Just happened to see an excellent documentary on the History Channel the other night on the circumstances leading up to this incident. (Thank goodness I had the sense to tape it, too!) Up until then, I had not seen the movie or read the articles. Lots of good homework since then, however! Very eye-opening to say the least.

>>By am-i-binned   (Tuesday, 26 Aug 2003 18:07)



i must admit that i was disappointed with this one. it's not that Black Hawk Down is a really lousy flick, it's just that it felt a lot like so many other war movies, plus the situation surrounding the story made me, well, angry. based on an actual event that took place in the autumn of 1993 in Somalia, Africa. set during an attempted raid on a warlord by American troops, that was supposed to take only 3 weeks and went on for nearly 2 months, the film centers around a band of Marines, played by the likes of Ewan McGreggor, Josh Hartnett, and Tom Sizemore. the soldiers are pitted against an entire city full of Somalian militia, and are forced to fight incredible odds in order to survive. the film is mostly war scenes, the troops barely had a moments rest from their enemy. keep in mind that this is an R rated film, and some scenes are quite graphic. the acting was fairly decent, no real standout performances here. what i didn't like about the film, is that after seeing the kind of Hell our own men had to endure, i wonder why we were there in the first place. apparently there was (and may still be, i don't know) a war going on between rival tribes, and the stronger of the two was starving off the weakest. thousands of people were dying, so the UN went in to offer up aide, only to fall under attack themselves. this is where i get a little critical. i just can't understand why we (the USA) need to get ourselves involved with every other countries problems. if a country is at war with itself, as bad as this may make me sound, let them kill themselves off then. we have enough troubles in our own country that need dealing with, that we should just mind our own damn business. when the threat is directed at us, then we should act, as in the case with Osama Bin Laden. but if a 3rd world country cannot get itself into the 21st century with the rest of the world, and wants to destroy itself, i say let them. as for the movie, i give it a 3 out of 5.

>>By Led Gopher   (Wednesday, 27 Aug 2003 06:48)



I didn't like this movie. The fight scenes dragged on. It was realistic but there was no story. (Retrospectively - see my next point) There was no African point of view. It bored me.

Apparently Tears of the Sun is a rebuke to Black Hawk Down, and I recommend those who hated BHD to go watch it.

Why does the USA get involved with Afghanistan/Iraq?
i. Could be to fight terrorism.
ii. Could be to use terrorism as an excuse and secure oil (keep it safe).

Why does the USA get involved with a non-oil 3rd World country?
iii. Could be so that it's not seen as hypocritical in setting a precedence for (i) or (ii)

Hm I've confused myself with my politics...

>>By ftad   (Sunday, 31 Aug 2003 13:49)



Hello, Ftad and Led Gopher...

Some of the answers you seek can be found if you check out the sites previously referenced:

http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/
sitemap.asp

www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/presents/
index.blackhawk.html

>>By am-i-binned   (Tuesday, 2 Sep 2003 05:03)



I liked this film but it didn't make me care enough about what was happening to the soldiers, not in the same way as other war films. I don't think any of us should stand by and watch human suffering so yes I agree with them being there, the country couldn't sort itself out. As for the african point of view, the story wasn't about them it was about the american soldiers it would sort of ruin the plot don't you think?

As for Afghanistan well it's a bit late for the Americans or any of us to start fighting terrorism now, it's gone too far, you will never control it let alone end it. Just look at Britain we're still dancing to the tune of the IRA and where did most of their money come from? America, until Sept 11th that is.

>>By Bethan   (Wednesday, 3 Sep 2003 10:32)



just thought i would share my opinion. first there are not a whole lot of intelligent comments left here. as for the film not being accurate, think about it they have roughly two hours to tell a two day story. they need to keep the amount of speaking parts down so they combine characters, ("Hoot" is no less than three people combined!) and they need to keep an audience interested. if you read the book, see the movie and watch the history channels, "True story of black hawk down" you will see that Ridley Scott did an excellent job of making this film one of the greatest modern war films.
as for those who critcize our being there and the time, first watch and read the story. the timing was poor but it was seen as an opportunity to capture two of Aidid's top luetenants.
i'm sure my oppinion means nothing to many, but i have the utmost respect for all the rangers and delta operators who were ther that day and especially to Gary Gordon and Randy Shugart who gave their lives to save that of black hawk pilot, Michael Durant.
i think it was an awsome film and have it on dvd and have watched it over 50 times and studied it as well as the book and the true story along with several magazine and newspaper articles. thanks for reading this!

>>By Axxel   (Monday, 29 Sep 2003 08:37)



I accept your opinion that you thought it was a good movie.
Maybe because I saw it at the end of a movie marathon I didn't enjoy it.

Something else I'd like to add. A movie should be able to tell a story all by itself without auxiliary items; not books, not newspaper articles, and certainly not previews. I don't think this one did. The only information they gave was that text at the start. I agree that it did seem accurate. This is perhaps the problem. E.g. I drive to uni everyday, sit down on my chair, start typing something. This is all very accurate but not very interesting. Similarly meticulously accurate war scenes are not interesting for me. As for the story I thought it was just about rescuing the 'black hawk down.' As for the "feeling", yes the movie shows that war isn't so glamourous, but I knew that before watching this. Anyway I'd probably have to watch this again to give a proper opinion but these were my first impressions.

>>By ftad   (Thursday, 2 Oct 2003 04:26)



Hello
i liked the film a lot and I have read the book and it is damned decent
One thing though why do all the delta people only fire off one round @ a time-CAR-15 is fully automatic i thought?

>>By Ali likes cheese   (Sunday, 22 Feb 2004 14:15)



You Fire one round at a time to be more accurate. Any weapon fired in a fully automatic mode is notoriously inaccurate as you are fighting the recoil.

>>By Spazzmania   (Monday, 23 Feb 2004 01:35)



Ok-but in the book it said durant was suprised when he was handed Gordon's weapon cos it was set to burst or something, but in the film Gordon is firing single shots
cheers for the info

By the way what extra stuff is on deluxe edition

>>By Ali likes cheese   (Monday, 23 Feb 2004 22:58)



ftad,
the book was writen before the film was, also u should read both as the book is different, for instance eversman's chalk four in actual life were on the lost convoy with Colonel Mcknight, in the film they miss out that Durant wasn't the only one that was alive after the crash, they pull out one of the crew cheifs who is badly wounded-but dies around the same time as Gordon and Shughart.
So the book is not an extra add on to the film

>>By Ali likes cheese   (Tuesday, 24 Feb 2004 21:41)



black hawk down is so good and there is tons of action

>>By anol   (Wednesday, 25 Feb 2004 17:46)



this movie failed in so many ways that war films often do. first it skimmed over the whole reason they were there in the very beginning quickly so they could get to the fighting. It had several pointless scenes and was a perfect de-humanization film if we ever wanted it to be used for propaganda. I had to laugh at the scenes with hundreds of poeple swarming out against the soldiers because it made the whole us or them feeling set in but the whole black hawk mission was for US to help Them from Him. It never touch the issues whether we should have gone in or not and completely failed overall it wasnt a war movie it was to hours of poeple shooting starving blacks in a destroyed city while adding as much blood as possible with no premess they could have taken out the fact it was a war and just started from the helicopter crash and it wouldnt have made a diference.

>>By Billy Pilgrim   (Friday, 5 Mar 2004 07:07)



Agree with Billy. There was fighting but no story development to why they were fighting. The text at the start is not good story telling. And doesn't stick in your mind.

And to Ali: even if a movie is based on a book, the movie should not assume the audience has read the book before. This is what I'm getting at.
e.g. The story of The Lord of the Rings movies can be understood without the audience having needed to read the books.

>>By ftad   (Sunday, 7 Mar 2004 18:16)



I think some of you might be taking this movie a bit too seriously; i mean, even though it was based on a true story, it was still just a movie. The movie was about the soldiers! Not why they were there, not why the U.S. was involved, not anything else. It was (in my opinion) telling the story of the soldiers right at that moment while they were in the thick of things. Why should the movie tell the entire history of the situation? If someone wants to know why what happened happened, they can go to the web sites am-i-binned suggested. I, for one, don't like history or politics, so when the movie told the story of the soliers experience, and nothing else, I was good to go.

I loved the movie! It contained a basic story line (what happened to the soldiers) and didn't have any extra stuff (politics and history) to take my mind away from the war scenes. It was the shiz-nit!

>>By oledirtymilkk   (Saturday, 13 Mar 2004 09:18)



Ok ftad ur right now i see what ur getting at now!
also oledirtymilkk has a point it was about the soldiers and their fighting

>>By Ali likes cheese   (Friday, 19 Mar 2004 21:53)



i agree it did justice to the soldiers but its important to know why the soldiers are there. Why is that man getting shot? Why is the helicopter on fire? Why are they fighting? and so on its always important to know why or it just becomes That man is getting shot. the helicopter is on fire. they are fighting. they are dieing, they dont know why they just are.

>>By Billy Pilgrim   (Saturday, 20 Mar 2004 07:54)



RIP Randall D. Shughart

>>By StalkerGhost   (Wednesday, 28 Jul 2004 17:07)



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