Director Report Card: Ridley Scott (2001) - Part 2

13. Black Hawk Down

Ridley Scott kept making movies throughout the eighties and nineties, despite having a few flops along the way. He directed four films in both decades, a good track record for any working filmmaker. The dawn of the new millennium would trigger a new prolific era for the director. He made eight movies in the 2000s, seven in the 2010s, and is kicking off this decade with back-to-back new releases. The Oscars "Gladiator" won definitely had something to do with this but, mostly, I think Ridley just likes to keep going. This unflappable work ethic would really begin in 2001, where "Hannibal" was followed nine months later by "Black Hawk Down." 

In 1993, Somalia was torn apart by civil war. The U.N. would send in peacekeeping forces shortly afterwards. After Mohamed Farrah Aidid would seize control, his soldiers would begin to attack any remaining U.N. military. A task force of army rangers was deployed to capture Aidid. "Black Hawk Down" depicts this military incursion into Mogadishu, the seat of Aidid's power. Throughout the operation, two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, forcing sudden rescue missions and leading to the loss of nineteen American soldiers. 

After "Gladiator" seemed to directly counter the jingoism of "G.I. Jane," Scott swings hard back in that direction with "Black Hawk Down." The director has occasionally claimed the movie was meant to be anti-war but, beyond the brutality of the violence, there's little evidence of that. "Black Hawk Down" is a film all about glorifying soldiers. The bravery of the men in this situation is repeatedly mentioned. Never once does the movie question whether the U.S. had any business being in Somalia in the first place. The loss of life of Somalian citizens – supposedly around 1000 died – is never really addressed. Whatever Scott's intentions were, "Black Hawk Down" is a movie that clearly shows war as worth it, as something that needs to be done.

In-between "Gladiator" and "Hannibal," it seems Ridley Scott was growing increasingly fascinated with cinematic depictions of violence. In "Black Hawk Down," hundreds of people are gunned down and killed. Spurting bullet wounds and red mist appears often. At one point, after a direct hit with a rocket launcher, a Somalian enforcer explodes into body parts and bloody giblets right in the center of the frame. This kind of theatrical bloodshed fit "Gladiator's" operatic tone and "Hannibal's" Grand Guignol atmosphere but seems wholly inappropriate for a gritty, based-on-facts war story like this.

"Black Hawk Down's" violence is non-stop. Once the soldiers enter the war zone, the movie becomes an endless cacophony of bullets, explosions, crashes, yelling, and death. The sound design is punishing, the viewer's eardrums constantly being hammered by noise and destruction. (Despite this, the movie won the Oscar for Best Sound, suggesting the Academy awards the most, not necessarily the best, even back in 2002.) It becomes aurally deafening immediately and, shortly afterwards, you're left emotionally numb to it as well. It's hard to feel too thrilled by a rocket exploding something when the same thing happens, in the exact same way, roughly a dozen times throughout the movie. 

Throughout this endless destruction, few salient points emerge. Like I said, "Black Hawk Down" actually has very little to say about the situation in Somalia or the United States' role in it. Even though the Task Force is there ostensibly to bring peace to the country, we barely see how the normal Somalian citizen is affected by this war. Instead, only one true message actually formulates in the film: That, in the middle of a war zone, the only thing that really matters is protecting the man next to you. This fits with the similarly bro-y messages seen in "Gladiator" and "White Squall" but it's done with a lot less subtly here. "Black Hawk Down" ends with someone outright speaking this message to the audience. This moral does little to dissuade the notion that "Black Hawk Down" is pro-military propaganda. "War is terrible but the brotherhood of soldiers is awesome," the movie seems to be saying.

In the past, even Ridley Scott's dullest films were at least nice to look at. "Black Hawk Down" doesn't even offer that. Presumably in an attempt to be as gritty and intense as possible, the film commits to an incredibly unappealing visual style. The entire movie is shot through a greenish tint, lending the entire film a seasick feeling. It's unpleasant, which was probably the intention, but doesn't make the film any easier to get through. There aren't even many of the visual trademarks you associate with Scott. There's some stylized lighting but most of the movie looks pretty washed-out. The desert setting precludes any fog banks, though Scott attempts to substitute clouds of smoke and dust. 

Probably the biggest reason why all of “Black Hawk Down's” techniques are so uninvolving is because there's very little attempt made to distinguish its characters. As in “G.I. Jane,” the military attire and crew-cuts makes it difficult to tell everyone apart. The cast is also large, the 100 real people involved in the operation whittled down to a still considerable 39. Attempts are made to humanize some of these military men, usually by giving them a single defining trait. Ewan McGregor's John Grimes is obsessed with coffee. Tom Sizemore's Lieutenant Colonel McKnight is especially pragmatic. Tom Hardy's Twombly spends most of the movie partially deaf. One of the pilots has an Elvis fixation. Ultimately, these tactics only go so far.

Making it even harder to pick out the characters among the endless chaos is a script that often falls into war movie clichés. There are so many last stands and heroic sacrifices in the movie that they stop being impressive pretty much immediately. A dying soldier asks his friend to tell his wife he loved her. Another is assured he's going to make it right before he expires. There's some improvised battlefield surgery, which goes predictably wrong. The characters in the movie that probably come the closest to being protagonists both easily fit into cinematic stereotypes. Josh Hartnett's Staff Sergeant Eversmann is a bland everyman – that blandness emphasized by Hartnett's wooden acting – who wonders if the war is wroth it before realizing, at the end, that it absolutely is. Eric Bana's Sergeant Gibson, meanwhile, is a gung-ho traveling warrior who knows the battle is worthwhile if you protect your brother. This is all stuff we've seen before. 

“Black Hawk Down” would be met with some controversy upon release, most of which revolved around its inaccuracies in telling this true story. However, one notable complaint accused the movie of being racist. It's impossible not to notice that seemingly all but one of the heroic soldiers are white. (The sole black American has a very small role.) Meanwhile, all the Somali aggressors are very dark-skinned. The movie treats the Somalis as a horde of faceless aggressors. They might as well be zombies, with the way they swarm around the heroes. Each one is an attacker and they scoop up the dead soldiers, ripping their guns and armors away. The film never provides much of a counterpoint to the vicious, deadly Somali soldiers. The racial optics of all this is definitely sketchy. I doubt Ridley Scott and his team intentionally made a racist movie but they should've thought this one through a little more.

It's not just the uncomfortable racial politics that causes “Black Hawk Down” to be morally offensive. Inevitably, it's jingoism pairs with some completely unearned pretensions. In the last act of the movie, our heroes – who so bravely risked their lives for freedom or something – marched down a road out of the war zone. They spy a Somali father cradling a dead child in his arms. “Oh, look at the horrors of war!,” the movie seems to say after spending over two hours focused on unending, impersonal violence and Somalis getting blown away. It's really almost insulting, this half-ass attempt to acknowledge how senseless and destructive the combat was after an entire movie devoted to glorifying combat. 

As I said, it's hard to pick out too many of the performers in the film. Many of the characters are memorable only because I recognize the actors, like Jason Isaac and William Fichtner, playing them. Fichtner can't help but make his character kind of likable, because William Fichtner is excellent in everything. A lot of faces I should recognize that IMDb tells me are in the movie – Kim Coates, Ioan Gruffudd, Ewen Bremner, Orlando Bloom, Richard Tyson – I couldn't pick out because everyone fades into each other. Of the cast, McGregor is probably the best, as he manages to mine some humor out of his desire to get out of the office. Sizemore also brings some memorable bluster to his part.

“Black Hawk Down” was successful with audiences in 2001 and even more-so after expanding to a wide release in early 2002. Critical reception was generally favorable too, Scott eventually earning his third Best Director Oscar nomination. (In addition to its Best Sound win and Scott's nomination, the movie also won for it editing and was nominated for its cinematography.) This was shortly after 9/11. Even though not a one of them could tell you anything about the situation in Somalia, I can recall all my high school buddies mostly speaking of the movie in hushed and awed tones. “Black Hawk Down's” status as propaganda would be fulfilled when stories about it being shown to recruits before undergoing training was released to the media. Ultimately, the movie is ineffective due to its indistinct characters, excessive violence, and multiple story choices that make the viewer uncomfortable in all the wrong ways. [Grade: C-]