Black Hawk Down
Black Hawk Down
The story of one hundred and sixty elite U.S. soldiers who dropped into Mogadishu in October 1993 to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord, but found themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily armed Somalis.
匚卂尺ㄥ reviewedFebruary 3, 2025
Some films are to Hollywood what a good tip is to the dealer in a card game. Known as the ‘Croupier’s Chip’ - it is traditionally given by the winner to the dealer at the end of the game... In terms of Dramatic Films in the past three decades ‘Black Hawk Down’ is to the Action Drama what ‘As Good As It Gets’ is to comedy. It’s going to take a long time to better it.
The success behind it is the judgment of Ridley Scott. And his timing in making the film. Made in the same year as 9/11; it didn’t hit the cinemas worldwide en masse until a few months after. It was also made a full two years before Saddam Hussein was removed from power in Iraq.
It is a testamental warning to strategists on intervention. When to intervene and whether you have the judgement at all to do so.
Nobody would disagree that Bill Clinton did absolutely the right thing. And nobody will doubt it is the last time international powers will ever care to intervene within an African Union state ever again (militarily speaking).
The cast Ridley Scott put together as an ensemble is incredibly well judged. So well judged that sadly; no one actor was singled out for any major awards. And as of 2021 Ridley Scott has almost equalled Martin Scorsese’s regard for most Academy Award Nominations for Best Director, without a win. Scorsese had been nominated five times before picking up the award. Ridley Scott is now up to four nominations without a nod.
And we are up to sadly what he should have won for... this film. So he’s left open to the same comments as Scorsese; that any win achieved is as a result of the guilt of neglect of recognition by the Academy.
Then there are the vested interests of politicians such as Barack Obama in East Africa and Iraq. When you compare his record on pure humanitarian grounds; there is no comparison to Bill Clinton whose judgement was sharp and clear and often embarrassed the UN with his sense of decency. This film reflects a noble but failed attempt. And it pulls no punches but has no bias whatever. And it keeps you watching for full information.
The world was after all left with the bombing of the WTC building in Kenya in 1994. And Clinton was not going to keep ignoring the warning signals no matter how he was blackmailed over his personal life and Flowers and Lewinsky’s public testimony.
He certainly did not pursue the Obama track on foreign policy in Africa and the Middle East which appeared to be a campaign of cringeworthy squirming on whether people will associate foreign policy with sexuality globally. The ‘Not in our name’ complex which seemed more about humouring warlords on the defence of marriage than saving lives. Clinton had to face Obama from the mid-90s as an enemy within. And the subtle themes which you find in ‘Black Hawk Down’ show it for all its worth.
The ensemble is the ensemble and I pick no actor out. Because they almost bring the dead back alive to tell their own story.
The G7 of countries will now never come to the aid of any society which shows its intervening humanitarian forces being dismembered with rocks, stones and clubs inside a downed helicopter.
Ridley’s audience is still waiting for him to pick up the award. But regardless; he is one of Tyneside’s finest. And he has with Hollywood whilst maintaining the best of classicism effortlessly.