Black Hawk Down

When the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan impacted so many audiences with its hyper-intense rain of bullets action, perhaps a producer somewhere said to himself, "What if I take this non-stop action and spread it through an entire 144-minute film?" While this isn't the case (since this movie was based on the book Black Hawk Down: A Story Of Modern War), it might as well have been. The suspense and action here is deftly woven together and pushes the threshold barrier of the average movie watcher, but succeeds at keeping eyes and interest riveted right up until the end. While the movie is graphic, it also shows restraint. Without being heavy-handed, producer Jerry Bruckheimer successfully shows the frustration of war and politics, as well as defining the concept of a hero. After several soldiers successfully make it back from Somalia's battlezone of Mogadishu into base camp, they immediately gear up for another trip back in. It is in this context that two seemingly background and otherwise insignificant scenes take center stage: "Where you going, Sizemore?" asks a leader of a soldier with a broken hand. "Out with you," he replies, like a kid wanting to join his friends. "Not with that cast on, you're not." To this, the soldier whips out a knife to cut the cast off. "Alright, alright!" yields his superior. The leader then turns to a shaken soldier and asks for his thoughts. He says, "I can't go back out there," and the reply he gets is simple, yet powerful: "Thomas, everyone feels the same way you do, alright? It's what you do right now that makes a difference." If I was a high school football coach, I'd show this scene at halftime. This one's a DVD not to miss, even if the extras only include one featurette. [Columbia Tristar / Doug Van Pelt]

Ratings:
Obscenities 80
Graphic Violence 38
Nude Scenes 0
% spiritual relevancy 72

This DVD review was printed in ISSUE 97 of HM Magazine.

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