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Black Hawk Down  BY: DAVID PERRY In the current climate, America might seem ready for a jingoist war film. Almost everyone seems to agree that Behind Enemy Lines failed to fill the gap, thus enters an earlier-than-planned release of Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down. Black Hawk Down was going to be Jerry Bruckheimer's 2002 release since he's already had his big Americana film this year, Pearl Harbor. But in the wake of September 11, Bruckheimer and the studio flack over at Columbia deemed Black Hawk Down ready for mass consumption by a Middle America happily waiting for some flagrant flag waving on the silver screen. Though the film is surprisingly restrained when it comes to that department, Black Hawk Down does turn out to be little more than another overblown and self-righteous Bruckheimer effort. This is the first time that Ridley Scott has worked with the über-producer, even though you'd swear that they have been in cahoots for twenty years. Yeah, Tony Scott, Ridley's brother, was the prodigal son for Bruckheimer-Simpson Productions with hits like Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, Days of Thunder, Crimson Tide, and Enemy of the State. Ridley has instead made such Bruckheimer-esque films as Black Rain, G.I. Jane, White Squall, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, and Gladiator. I doubt the so-called zany feminine embodiment of the girls in Bruckheimer's Coyote Ugly would have arrived without Scott's Thelma & Louise. Ridley Scott, unlike his brother, can have a slower side that draws into emotions of characters -- that is one of his biggest attributes, especially considering he works predominately in actions films; Bruckheimer, however, fills his productions with quick-cuts and formalized action scenes that veer on mindless impressionistic dancing. Black Hawk Down, with the marriage of these two styles, is burdened by the pull from the two sides. I mean, Scott is far from a subtle filmmaker, but he is at least smart enough to keep from using Bruckheimer's board-to-the-head storytelling. On 3 October 1993, American forces dropped into the city of Mogadishu, Somalia, in an attempt to raid a meeting of then rebel warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's lieutenants. The raid, meant to last only a couple hours, turned into the bloodiest moment in American military combat since Vietnam. The Somalis were ready to stop the U.S. peacekeepers to ensure the promised future of reactionary fundamentalist Aidid. His agents made sure that the impending raid was known in Mogadishu long before the first helicopter of Delta Force soldiers arrived. That single day had more importance on the U.S. military decisions of the last presidential administration than anything since Vietnam, including the Cold War. Clinton pulled out of various armaments, including Somalia, and cutback on the military. His wariness is understandable considering the massive carnage of Mogadishu, even if it meant that he would not send American forces to stop Osama Bin Laden in 1998. Black Hawk Down never really points fingers at anyone being at fault, and, perhaps, that is its strongest attribute. But, at the same time, the filmmakers never allow themselves to take any form of a stance. This is found-art in the most opulent form -- looking at the movie might leave some people angered at the nearby military brass (embodied by Sam Shepard's Major General William Garrison), the Washington decision makers (including President Bill Clinton, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin [who resigned in 1994], and Secretary of State Warren Christopher), or just the Somali people themselves. Is racism running rampant in Black Hawk Down? Well, to a point, yes. In the black and white world of this film, everyone in Somalia seems to be on the side of Aidid. This, of course, was not true -- Aidid was merely one of the many warlords trying to keep control of Somalia at that time. And in the military ranks, token Gabriel Casseus plays the only minority in the pack. Not only that, but he is also left to speak Spanish to take care of some Hispanic tokenism too. But I digress on this subject -- let the accusations of racism go to Elvis Mitchell instead of me. My problems with Black Hawk Down are far more deeply centered on the screenplay by Ken Nolan and Steven Zaillian from the Mark Bowden non-fiction novel. This is a movie that literally throws character development to the wind -- by the film's second act, it becomes clear that no character in the entire has been developed to a point that might create some dramatic tension or audience interest. Yes, we are humanly taken by carnage begat on human beings, but these are nameless faces without any real pretext. It's like a horror film that kills off only the secondary characters because the audience is hinged on the leads, just flipped around: no one in Scott's film has the audience's emotional investment and, for that reason, none of their possible demises really strike any cord beyond the automatic distaste for any death. Black Hawk Down is a solidly made film, with fine
editing from Pietro Scalia, cinematography from Kieslowski favorite Slavomir Idziak, music
from Hans Zimmer, and direction from Scott. The movie is not a horribly made effort, even
if the end product has some of the biggest problems found in a 2001 movie. Watching Black
Hawk Down brings memories of Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line,
just without the humanism and naturalism that reflected so beautifully from those two 1998
master works. This is the MTV-generation version -- a boy's game of war, just with the
grim results made clear. Josh Hartnett and Ewan McGregor (giving what could be the worst
performance of his career) glean like Tom Cruise in Top Gun, the flag waves
clearly like Pearl Harbor, and the story fails to invest anything in its
characters like Armageddon. Only Jerry Bruckheimer could ruin the cinematic
visualization of Mogadishu. |
