Black Hawk Down

Anyone seen this movie before? I think it's pretty good. They portray the Somalia situation well, but could have went into detail a bit more.

I've avoided watching it actually.

I think it's a decent more. Not bad.

Originally Posted by |Sith|5|DarthWarman88

Anyone seen this movie before? They portray the Somalia situation well, but could have went into detail a bit more.

Uh yeah, it's a fairly popular movie actually. I don't think it goes into the "Somalia situation" very much at all. A little intro text, a little exposition and the rest is all US soldiers fighting their way out. Not overly concerned with any "situation".

Its a great action movie.

I loved it. They had to cut a lot of what happened because it just would have been too complex and viewers had a hard time telling exactly what was going on and who was where in the film as it was. Except for the part where the Delta Force guy throws a grenade like 100 yards into a third story window to take out a machine gunner (among a few other scenes), it seemed quite accurate for a movie.

Also it didn't get very political at all, which is kind of uncommon for a modern war movie; directors suddenly have to put lessons galore in movies the closer they are to the present.

Good movie. Saving Private Ryan is a better war movie though.

War movies are always interesting. This feature was even more.

I thought it was a fairly boring action movie.
Alot of action and yet little reason to care.
They kill off a few people and make a deal out of their death like I was suppose care about them.
I don't, I don't care about them since they never took their time establishing their characters.
Like the guy that gets blown in half by a RPG, took me like 10 times to figure out that this was the guy with the drawings. Don't even think you are told his name and yet you are expected to care when he dies.
I think this movie would have benefited greatly from being alot longer and took their time in establishing some of these characters so you might actually care. I cared as much about the US troops dying as I did about the somali's that were being killed namely very little.

We were soldiers which came out a few months after suffered from the same problem. Characters dying, you are suppose to care and yet they never took the time to even tell us their names so you don't care.

So a lesson for those that are trying to do a war-movie, make characters that we actually give a damn about and take the time to introduce them and let the audience get to know them.
If you decide to kill them off, we will care and be sad about it.
It will make the actions scenes more exciting and meaningful as well.
If you are gonna kill off a random joe like they do in BHD and WWS, then don't make a big deal about their deaths. Just let them get blown up and that's it. Shoot him and move on, don't linger on him.

Originally Posted by TB666

I thought it was a fairly boring action movie.
Alot of action and yet little reason to care.
They kill off a few people and make a deal out of their death like I was suppose care about them.
I don't, I don't care about them since they never took their time establishing their characters.
Like the guy that gets blown in half by a RPG, took me like 10 times to figure out that this was the guy with the drawings. Don't even think you are told his name and yet you are expected to care when he dies.
I think this movie would have benefited greatly from being alot longer and took their time in establishing some of these characters so you might actually care. I cared as much about the US troops dying as I did about the somali's that were being killed namely very little.

We were soldiers which came out a few months after suffered from the same problem. Characters dying, you are suppose to care and yet they never took the time to even tell us their names so you don't care.

So a lesson for those that are trying to do a war-movie, make characters that we actually give a damn about and take the time to introduce them and let the audience get to know them.
If you decide to kill them off, we will care and be sad about it.
It will make the actions scenes more exciting and meaningful as well.
If you are gonna kill off a random joe like they do in BHD and WWS, then don't make a big deal about their deaths. Just let them get blown up and that's it. Shoot him and move on, don't linger on him.

The problem is that the film is too royally following the real account, which is good in some way since that let some viewers know how boring actual combat is.

Originally Posted by hellheaven1987

The problem is that the film is too royally following the real account, which is good in some way since that let some viewers know how boring actual combat is.

Uhm, getting shot at and suffering horrific injuries or death is not "boring". Perhaps you've got something mixed up here.

Originally Posted by Rapax

Uhm, getting shot at and suffering horrific injuries or death is not "boring". Perhaps you've got something mixed up here.

No, got a shot on critical spot and die is clear and simple - in fact, none of the US force death in movie is "horrible" in anyway (I do agree some Somalians die in bad way, although no body care since Somalians in the film are more random characters).

Originally Posted by hellheaven1987

No, got a shot on critical spot and die is clear and simple - in fact, none of the US force death in movie is "horrible" in anyway (I do agree some Somalians die in bad way, although no body care since Somalians in the film are more random characters).

Except for the two Delta Snipers Shugart and ? who were dragged through the streets and mutilated.

Originally Posted by hellheaven1987

No, got a shot on critical spot and die is clear and simple - in fact, none of the US force death in movie is "horrible" in anyway (I do agree some Somalians die in bad way, although no body care since Somalians in the film are more random characters).

What does any of this have to do with combat being boring? Don't switch around your points. You also seem to have forgotten the soldier who got hit in the leg and then painfully bled out because they didn't manage to clamp his artery shut. Getting blown in half or having an RPG stuck in your leg also sounds pretty damn horrible to me.


@TB666:
Actually I'm pretty sure most of the characters were introduced in the first portion of the movie, with training and scenes on base. The problem is that there are a lot of characters, based on real life soldiers who also end up all having the same haircut (in the case of Rangers) and wearing the same uniforms and equipment. That's why Ridley Scott had the Rangers write their names on the helmets even though they didn't do that in real life. It can be a problem to keep track of who's who when everybody looks the same but that's just the nature of the beast.

Originally Posted by TB666

I thought it was a fairly boring action movie.
Alot of action and yet little reason to care.
They kill off a few people and make a deal out of their death like I was suppose care about them.
I don't, I don't care about them since they never took their time establishing their characters.
Like the guy that gets blown in half by a RPG, took me like 10 times to figure out that this was the guy with the drawings. Don't even think you are told his name and yet you are expected to care when he dies.
I think this movie would have benefited greatly from being alot longer and took their time in establishing some of these characters so you might actually care. I cared as much about the US troops dying as I did about the somali's that were being killed namely very little.

We were soldiers which came out a few months after suffered from the same problem. Characters dying, you are suppose to care and yet they never took the time to even tell us their names so you don't care.

So a lesson for those that are trying to do a war-movie, make characters that we actually give a damn about and take the time to introduce them and let the audience get to know them.
If you decide to kill them off, we will care and be sad about it.
It will make the actions scenes more exciting and meaningful as well.
If you are gonna kill off a random joe like they do in BHD and WWS, then don't make a big deal about their deaths. Just let them get blown up and that's it. Shoot him and move on, don't linger on him.

I agree. Though with Black Hawk Down, he entirely changed the way war was photographed on film and changed the atmosphere completely. CoD4 is almost a perfect mirror of how Ridley Scott portrayed modern warfare.

The film is considered very accurate with some over dramatization, it is based off a book which was writen by direct interviews by US soldiers who were involved in that battle. In the film though many characters were combined to shorten the size of the cast and make it easier to understand. Unlike Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down is based of a real story, and yes the battle was as lop sided as the film shows. Poor drugged up milita.

I like the film, it is better than most war movies, it doesn't show the Americans as super heroes sticking a bayonnet in the skull of a German machine gunner as one WWI movie showed which I refuse to name. It has a Vietnam style feel to it like "Why are we here" at some points.

Also I'm not a fan of Saving Private Ryan I actually hate that movie do to some cases of very poor acting and Steven's sense of over dramatization which made films like War of the Worlds a bit.... eaaah for me.

Originally Posted by TB666

I thought it was a fairly boring action movie.
Alot of action and yet little reason to care.
They kill off a few people and make a deal out of their death like I was suppose care about them.
I don't, I don't care about them since they never took their time establishing their characters.
Like the guy that gets blown in half by a RPG, took me like 10 times to figure out that this was the guy with the drawings. Don't even think you are told his name and yet you are expected to care when he dies.
I think this movie would have benefited greatly from being alot longer and took their time in establishing some of these characters so you might actually care. I cared as much about the US troops dying as I did about the somali's that were being killed namely very little.

We were soldiers which came out a few months after suffered from the same problem. Characters dying, you are suppose to care and yet they never took the time to even tell us their names so you don't care.

So a lesson for those that are trying to do a war-movie, make characters that we actually give a damn about and take the time to introduce them and let the audience get to know them.
If you decide to kill them off, we will care and be sad about it.
It will make the actions scenes more exciting and meaningful as well.
If you are gonna kill off a random joe like they do in BHD and WWS, then don't make a big deal about their deaths. Just let them get blown up and that's it. Shoot him and move on, don't linger on him.

I disagree about not knowing who the people are who are dying. In a way that makes it much more realistic, as many of the people may have not even known who he was (he was Delta Force I believe and he was with mostly rangers). In a war movie you are not going to get a background story on everyone who dies, the movies would need to be like 30 hours long. Anyways I didn't find the extra ten seconds for a soldier to walk over to the half blown apart man and hold his hand for a further 20 seconds to be detracting from the film at all.

To have a war movie were you know the background of those (or the main people) who are all killed off would make the movie too long, and a movie complete void of any emotion for those who die would be unappealing and bland.

Originally Posted by Tiberius Tosi

I disagree about not knowing who the people are who are dying. In a way that makes it much more realistic, as many of the people may have not even known who he was (he was Delta Force I believe and he was with mostly rangers). In a war movie you are not going to get a background story on everyone who dies, the movies would need to be like 30 hours long. Anyways I didn't find the extra ten seconds for a soldier to walk over to the half blown apart man and hold his hand for a further 20 seconds to be detracting from the film at all.

To have a war movie were you know the background of those (or the main people) who are all killed off would make the movie too long, and a movie complete void of any emotion for those who die would be unappealing and bland.

I didn't say add a background story to all who die.
I said if you are gonna focus on a character that is dying, his buddy holding the guy's hand, telling him that everything will be alright, crying and all that. Those scenes fail complete if we don't feel the character's pain.
As I said, most of the time in BHD we don't know them, we are never introduced to them and yet the movie wants to us to care about them.
If you are gonna kill someone that hasn't been introduced then you do what they did with the somalis in this movie, you see a guy get shot, blood squirts, next scene. All you see is a guy getting killed, the end, no need to feel anything. Unimportant characters die that way in movies.

Like when that ranger captain, while hold up in the building along with the child rapist walks up to a dying man that later dies, I don't think you have seen this guy that is dying before until this point and when he dies we are obviously suppose to feel sorry him and the captain who takes his death very hard and yet you don't. I feel as sorry for him as I did for the somali guy that was in the window that got fragged, those two characters were about as well-developed.

Now take for example Wade's death scene in SPR, you know this character, you know what he looks like, some of his background and some of his personality.
His death was focused on and for a reason, he was a developed character and quite a nice one too. You feel sorry when he dies and you feel what the rest of the squad is going through. It pulls at your heartstrings.

BHD and WWS as mentioned tried to pull at heartstrings that didn't exist.
Consider one of the actors complained that the cinematic version was different from the one they thought they were making suggests that alot of cut from this movie and I wouldn't be surprised if the scenes that would justify the focused deaths on certain characters were among those that was edited out.
And it's too bad, it could have been a good war-movie with those in as it is now, but it's just a action movie. Well-shot action movie but still a action movie with very little heart to it.

Originally Posted by TB666

I thought it was a fairly boring action movie.
Alot of action and yet little reason to care.
They kill off a few people and make a deal out of their death like I was suppose care about them.
I don't, I don't care about them since they never took their time establishing their characters.
Like the guy that gets blown in half by a RPG, took me like 10 times to figure out that this was the guy with the drawings. Don't even think you are told his name and yet you are expected to care when he dies.
I think this movie would have benefited greatly from being alot longer and took their time in establishing some of these characters so you might actually care. I cared as much about the US troops dying as I did about the somali's that were being killed namely very little.

We were soldiers which came out a few months after suffered from the same problem. Characters dying, you are suppose to care and yet they never took the time to even tell us their names so you don't care.

So a lesson for those that are trying to do a war-movie, make characters that we actually give a damn about and take the time to introduce them and let the audience get to know them.
If you decide to kill them off, we will care and be sad about it.
It will make the actions scenes more exciting and meaningful as well.
If you are gonna kill off a random joe like they do in BHD and WWS, then don't make a big deal about their deaths. Just let them get blown up and that's it. Shoot him and move on, don't linger on him.

I disagree with this post and all of your subsequent ones.

Firstly, one of the principle objectives behind the making of this film was to remind people of an operation that was all but forgotten. It was an interesting story that was certainly the most intense urban warfare since Vietnam and yet very little people even had any idea about it. Think about how much exposure the entire subject got just because of that movie. People became interested in what had happened and some went and researched more, or read the book, or watched the three hour HIstory channel documentary about it. It brought a forgotten story to the front of people's minds.

It's not about caring about each individual soldier. And as Rapax said it's part of the entire experience. With SPR you had what, like eight soldiers on a fake mission... of course it's more focused on characters. BHD was trying to show the entire mission that day so it had to jump around. And pretty much any of the people that were killed were introduced at the beginning. Not for long, because this isn't a movie about individuals, it's about the men that served there, but really... how can you complain that the movie stopped for thirty seconds to get you a glimpse of the man that was blown in half by the RPG. He wasn't the one drawing at the beginning either...

The whole point is just to show the extent of which these men just to get to a single blackhawk to try and recover bodies. Leave no Man Behind, which is the tagline of the movie and essentially a main plot point. So in that it did succeed.

Originally Posted by Captain Jin

I disagree with this post and all of your subsequent ones.

Firstly, one of the principle objectives behind the making of this film was to remind people of an operation that was all but forgotten. It was an interesting story that was certainly the most intense urban warfare since Vietnam and yet very little people even had any idea about it. Think about how much exposure the entire subject got just because of that movie. People became interested in what had happened and some went and researched more, or read the book, or watched the three hour HIstory channel documentary about it. It brought a forgotten story to the front of people's minds.

It's not about caring about each individual soldier. And as Rapax said it's part of the entire experience. With SPR you had what, like eight soldiers on a fake mission... of course it's more focused on characters. BHD was trying to show the entire mission that day so it had to jump around. And pretty much any of the people that were killed were introduced at the beginning. Not for long, because this isn't a movie about individuals, it's about the men that served there, but really... how can you complain that the movie stopped for thirty seconds to get you a glimpse of the man that was blown in half by the RPG. He wasn't the one drawing at the beginning either...

The whole point is just to show the extent of which these men just to get to a single blackhawk to try and recover bodies. Leave no Man Behind, which is the tagline of the movie and essentially a main plot point. So in that it did succeed.

So they made a forgetable movie about the event instead.
This movie would have been higher ranked and more remembered if they focused more on the characters, that's all I'm saying.
Even Gettyburg which focused on an event, had characters that you remember.

He wasn't the one drawing at the beginning either...

And yes he was.
http://www.moviemistakes.com/film1817/questions

What is the name of the soldier that's sketching while in the barracks (and which one is he during the raid?)? I never could catch the name, and it's not in the subtitles. [Master Sgt. Tim 'Griz' Martin, played by Canadian actor Kim Coates. He's also the Delta taping his blood type to his boot. During the raid, he's thrown from a Humvee by a RPG. He loses both his legs and bleeds to death.]