Brutal film

So God finally allowed me to see "Black Hawk Down." What do I mean by that? When it was at the theatre, each and every time we were going something happened. Like what? Broken car, sick kid, dead grandmother--literally! The final blow was standing in line, all kids away elsewhere, free time to ourselves, no long lines, money in hand.... "Sorry, but the projector is broken. We hope to have it working for this evening's showing."

I gave up and waited for the DVD, which I bought the day it came out. The curse continued for over a week, however, as I was unable to watch it. Now I have. E-gads.

I liked the book. Bowden did an excellent job gathering together his sources, documenting each and every detail, and then writing a comprehensive tale that is easily read, and makes the sheer confusion at the time accessible. Kudos!

Ridley Scott does the same with the film. Regretably, he does this at the expense of creating any single character who is memorable. Instead, rather than focus on a single individual's twist of fate and fortune, Scott lures you into focusing on all members of the group. Every death stands out like a slap, from Sergeant Pilla taking it in the base of the head, to the Somali inadvertently gunned down by his own young son. "Brutal" is too soft a word for this film. It's been a long time since I couldn't watch any moment within any film; this one made me look away from my own television, in my own living room. Makes me wonder what a theatrical performance would have been like.

Unlike Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," there is not a shread of a glimmer of a hint of uplift in this film, and that's probably it's biggest flaw. The sheer act of survival, that "only" 18 died under such conditions, is the one Good Thing by the end. Scott has been here before. Watching "Alien" in the theatre was like putting your head in a vice and letting someone slowly turn it tighter. You can't help but admire the craft, but ugh.

Here, though, that torture serves a purpose. Like "Saving Private Ryan" before, it takes any notion of a glorious war and throws it out the window. It doesn't discuss the politics (at least, not too much); you've given the situation from the grunts perspectice, and what they have to go through. I don't see this so much as an anti-war film as a "docudrama" of what war is truly like, or as close as you can get on film. And it's not just gore gore gore, but the confusion, noise, bravery, nerves, inaction, action, etc. In short, two snaps in a circle and a z-formation!

I'll leave the pros and cons of whether we ever should have been in such a situation as Somalia for another day.