"Black Hawk Down" Rated R
****.5/*****
Ridley Scott (Gladiator)'s new war movie about the incident in Somalia in 1993 where 19 American soliders were killed in a mission gone wrong is a truly different war movie. It shows us exactly what happened (event wise) to lead up to this event, and during the event. It seems all like one long scene. Each person and thing in the incident is shown (apparantly) just the way it happened.
This is something we don't often see in war movies. Too often, war movies tend to be based on ficticious occurances based inside an actual war. The detriment to Black Hawk Down's way of the war movie is the characters. They are never really developed. Entertainment Weekly's review remarked that the actors serve only as "man-shaped masses". This is true, however, I think that is not only as bad as it sounds, but also it was done on purpose.
The best aspect of this movie, as with all other Ridley Scott movies, is his visual showman ship. His extream dedication to creating amazing shots using lighting, shaking cameras, setting, and more lighting, is never more apparent then in this movie. It is amazing how he can make some of these shots of death and carnage strangely beautiful. He is truly a master.
