For those of you who don't know, the Pentagon partially controls the success of any movie based on the U.S. military. If they don't like what any portion of a film explicitly says or obliquely insinuates about the armed forces, they won't grant the production company access to the tanks and planes and guns and helicopters and guns and ammo and ordinance and firepower that are the prerequisite to any decent war movie.
So a movie like Black Hawk Down -- a minute-by-minute account of a botched U.S. Rangers' mission in Mogadishu in 1992 -- fundamentally will not challenge or appear to negate any aspect of the military; otherwise, the filmmakers won't be able to showcase the toys that attract viewers to come see the movie.
So people who hope that a film that can so accurately portray military tactics will also avoid pro-America melodrama have their hearts in the right place but are a bit naive.
Black Hawk Down, in many places, really is as ignorant and nationalistic as one would expect a joint project from Jerry Bruckheimer and Ridley Scott to be. What else would you expect? A meaningful political statement? These guys are action men. Whether or not you agree with the insertion of politics into filmmaking -- a hot topic given the events of the past several months -- is a topic for another discussion.
That's because, from a purely voyeuristic perspective, it's a great movie. A 24-hour battle in an East African metropolis is recreated round for round. There's no question that that is the sole motivation of the film. And despite its built-in partiality to some vague American ideal of heroism, the script, based on Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Mark Bowden's book, doesn't take sides. You see the (many) failures of the modern military bureaucracy, the specific dilemmas of our international police status, and the raw fear that only the uncertainty of battle can elicit from both sides of a conflict.
So even though it's important to question the propagandist aspects of many films, especially American war films, I think that those complaints miss the essential question: why is there always some chock-blocker sitting in front of me who can't stop clapping or cheering whenever a resident of the Third World gets shot, as there was when I saw an early screening of Down? Unfortunately, this question leads me to the conclusion that the former film trend will continue until the latter form of behavior stops.
Black Hawk Down
Dir.: Ridley Scott
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore
Rated: R
3 Stars Visit Black Hawk Down's Official Website
