|
Black Hawk Down
There are two schools of thought regarding Black Hawk Down.
The first is
the loud group who regard this movie as jingoistic American propaganda and the
second - exemplified by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -
has recommended it for various OscarsTM, including best photography and
best editing. But not best film.
Now, I am a sucker for controversy. Most, if not all, of my
picks for Best Films Ever have arrived out of just this sort of
situation. To provide just one example: Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon
was both roundly condemned and wildly applauded on release. The best
films usually are. Sadly, so are some of the worst.
As far as
I am concerned, the trick when going to the movies on the basis of what could be
termed "reviewer wars", is to pick only movies that are upheld by
scribblers with brains and condemned by the droolers.
I suppose everyone does something like this now that (thanks to the
internet) an education and a rating on any "intelligence scale" has
simply become "personal opinion" and all reviewers are equal.
Perhaps I just like war movies. I know I used to like Ridley Scott.
Blackhawk starts in Somalia with lots of helicopters and features that
odd, dark, blackish, polished look of films that have heaps of CGI in
them. A simple scene is set between a high ranking US
officer and a Somali arms dealer.
The arms dealer says : "We didn't ask you to come to (interfere with)
our little war."
The officer replies : "There have been 300,000 civilian casualties so far
in your little war. We don't call that a war, we call it genocide."
The arms dealer just looks at the officer. He is unconvinced.
The "goodies and baddies" are now clear in everyone's mind. The magic
word of "Genocide" has been thrown. The baddies have been identified.
There is another word, spelt "b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t" that can be levelled at
this dialogue, but I simply cannot be bothered, since it would take too
much typing.
The Americans identify one Somali warlord as being their main problem and
they decide to arrest him. To do this, they throw in several dozen
helicopters, ten trucks and several hundred men. When one of the
helicopters gets shot down and the operation switches from being a
"getting out without getting shot operation" to being a "rescuing people
while getting out and not getting shot operation" it all becomes too
complex and the US forces have rather more problems than they can deal
with. In a tragedy of epic proportions, 19 Americans are killed and two
thousand Somali's die.
The last two hours of Black Hawk Down are exactly like the first 20
minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" : the camera jiggles up and down; loud
noises happen; people shout incomprehensible stuff into the camera; and then,
for some variety, exactly the same thing happens again. Again. And again. And
again....
Tactically, the operation that the film was based on, was a mess.
The film reflects this. Everybody gives the impression that they did not
have clue one as to what the buggery was going on. I didn't either. The
difference was that I didn't have to pretend (however badly) that I
gave a fuck.
In the olden days, when one was making a war movie, one hired "types."
There was the hard-bitten grizzled sergeant.
The callow youth.
The steely eyed lieutenant.
You get the idea. Each one of them looked different. They spoke
differently. Invariably, there was a long period where one got to know
the characters.
Then the shooting started and, at the very least, you had
a rough idea of which guy was which. There was always one character just waiting for tragedy to
strike. Maybe you didn't care if they got
killed. But at least you had a clue who was who.
Ridley Scott has abandoned this plan. Instead he introduces 30
functionally identical people - all bald, all wearing camoflage - in
dimly lit barracks ... in the space of ten minutes. Then the camera starts
jiggling and the explosions start. Can you see the flaw in this cinema
experience?
Alright. ONE of the characters stands out. Eric Bana produces a
pedestrian performance. The man who played Chopper Reed could have
phoned in. As such, he stands head and shoulders above the rest of the
cast.
So what of the controversy surrounding the film? I will describe two
scenes.
1)
It has become night. About ten US troops are trapped in a building with
wounded. One of the wounded is dying. His dying is a tragedy. As he
delivers some deathbed requests, his buddies try some amateur surgery and
attempt to seal off his arteries, using their fingers. There are more
US troops in the street outside. They are under very heavy fire from some
fifty Somali's with machine guns on the flat roof of a nearby building.
A US helicopter flies by, making one pass with a minigun. Everyone on the
roof apparently dies. The camera cuts, without comment, back to the
tragic death of the US serviceman.
2)
Day. A helicopter crashes. The pilot wakes to find himself surrounded by
a sea of screaming and obviously murderous enemies. They take turns running
up to him and shooting at him. He fires back with a machine pistol
killing them as they approach. His helicopter, though broken, is a clean
technological object. He is clean and has technological objects hanging
from him are clean. His enemies are sweaty, dusty and hysterically mad. There are
thousands of them. They are all black. Eventually, they kill him.
I will let you draw you own conclusions from these two examples, which, I
assure you, are clearly indicative of the film as a whole. But I will add
two concepts to assist you in your thoughts.
The first concept is simply the film ZULU.
The second is that early in the film one of the US troops refers to the
Somalis' as "sammys" and says that none of them can shoot straight. For
your edification, "sammy's" is a term coined by White South Africans to
refer to native South Africans. It is used frequently, and to good affect,
in the film Gandhi.
I have seen every film that Ridley Scott has ever made.
I liked The Duellists and Bladerunner so much that I thought he was
a great director and always dutifully looked forward to his next
project.
This means that I have now seen:
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Hannibal (2001)
Gladiator (2000)
G.I. Jane (1997)
White Squall (1996)
1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)
Thelma & Louise (1991)
Black Rain (1989)
Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)
Legend (1985)
Blade Runner (1982)
Alien (1979)
Duellists, The (1977)
I would be being polite to say that none of these efforts measure up to
the quality of either "The Duellists" or "Bladerunner." With the
exception of 1492 and Alien, none of them are really good films and
some of them are very sub-average indeed.
Black Hawk Down is the last Ridley Scott film that I will be willingly to
see. Bluntly, I found it to be an incoherent mess, with little or
nothing to recommend it. Sub-texturally, I found it offensive.
Emotionally, I found it boring. Intellectually, I found it almost
insulting.
Rating : Give it a wide berth.
(C)opyright Alex Rieneck, 2002.
|
