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Black Hawk Down (2001)

tomatometer

76

Average Rating: 6.9/10
Reviews Counted: 170
Fresh: 129 | Rotten: 41

Though it's light on character development and cultural empathy, Black Hawk Down is a visceral, pulse-pounding portrait of war, elevated by Ridley Scott's superb technical skill.

71

Average Rating: 6.6/10
Critic Reviews: 41
Fresh: 29 | Rotten: 12

Though it's light on character development and cultural empathy, Black Hawk Down is a visceral, pulse-pounding portrait of war, elevated by Ridley Scott's superb technical skill.

audience

85

liked it
Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 435,535

My Rating

Movie Info

A quickly forgotten chapter in United States military history is relived in this harrowing war drama from director Ridley Scott, based on a series of Philadelphia Inquirer articles and subsequent book by reporter Mark Bowden. On October 3rd, 1993, an elite team of more than 100 Delta Force soldiers and Army Rangers, part of a larger United Nations peacekeeping force, are dropped into civil war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia, in an effort to kidnap two of local crime lord Mohamed Farah Aidid's top

R,

Drama, Action & Adventure

Ken Nolan

Jun 11, 2002

$108.6M

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All Critics (171) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (136) | Rotten (41) | DVD (54)

I also don't know how well this 2001 drama represents the events of October 3 and 4, 1993, though I can see that it represents them in a realist vein, referring to other war movies without becoming frivolous.

November 8, 2011 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Black Hawk Down makes that point without preachment, in precise and pitiless imagery. And for that reason alone it takes its place on the very short list of the unforgettable movies about war and its ineradicable and immeasurable costs.

November 8, 2011 Full Review Source: TIME Magazine
TIME Magazine
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A relentless immersion in combat strikingly realized but none too pleasurable to sit through.

January 2, 2009 Full Review Source: Variety
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[Scott] does a reasonable job sketching the complicated and contradictory political context, but attempts to bring in the odd Somali perspective are grossly inadequate.

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A first-rate war movie that presents its subject so horrifyingly well that it doesn't need to probe or preach.

July 20, 2002 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | Comments (2)
Chicago Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[D]efinitely worth seeing for those amazing battle sequences.

January 24, 2002 Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper
Ebert & Roeper
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It looks fantastic, not least because it boasts helicopter scenes to rival those of Apocalypse Now.

November 8, 2011 Full Review Source: Film4
Film4

Violent depiction of a risky rescue; adults only.

January 2, 2011 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comments (2)
Common Sense Media

No film from the Zeroes - hell, maybe ever - more forcefully imparted the horrors of war as thoroughly, coherently and hauntingly. Even justified wars run rampant with monstrosities, and this showed just how critical camaraderie can be in conquering them.

September 25, 2010 Full Review Source: Suite101.com
Suite101.com

Black Hawk Down" is a precise vision of how little war has changed in spite of America's high-tech equipment and extensive vocabulary of modern tactics.

August 23, 2009 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com
ColeSmithey.com

While fine films like Saving Private Ryan depict warfare at its worst, they do not depict warfare in modernity. I cannot imagine a better representation of war, with all of its urban complexities, than Black Hawk Down.

February 28, 2008 Full Review Source: BrandonFibbs.com | Comments (5)
BrandonFibbs.com

Action masters Ridley Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer prove that it is possible to extend the opening twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan to two full hours. Now all they have to do is spend some of that time creating characters to care about.

December 27, 2007 Full Review Source: Big Picture Big Sound
Big Picture Big Sound

It would've been nice to get to know a few of the men we're meant to care about.

July 23, 2007 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comments (12)
eFilmCritic.com

Ambitious, sumptuously-framed and frenetic, Black Hawk Down occasionally errs on the confused, but is nonetheless a rare find of a war movie which dares to turn genre convention on its head.

December 30, 2006 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine
Empire Magazine

The cast is solid, but with the focus on action and very few lines included which allow the actors to individualize their characters, the soldiers tend to blur as much as the fighting.

May 31, 2006 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis
Movie Metropolis

Though visually awesome in its gritty portrayal of combat, the film is marred by lack of coherent or engaging story and distinguishable characters to anchor the tale.

April 26, 2006 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com
EmanuelLevy.Com

'Black Hawk Down' jerks you around, slaps the side of your head, and kicks your butt back up to keep moving on. [Published 1-26-02]

December 11, 2005 Full Review | Comment (1)

n some ways it is an ultimate expression of where violence in movies has been headed, to a constant, relentless cavalcade of slaughter and destruction.

November 6, 2004 Full Review Source: Movie City News
Movie City News

War is inevitable, and often gruesome, but it also turns brave soldiers into heroes.

June 23, 2004 Full Review Source: Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) | Comment (1)

One helluva war film.

March 7, 2004 Full Review Source: Blunt Review | Comment (1)
Blunt Review

Audience Reviews for Black Hawk Down

Black Hawk Down is one of the many war films I have watched recently. It too is one of the better one's I have watched. It is packed with a lot of talent. Which of course makes this film that much better because the performances are so good. Tom Sizemore is good in this movie and it makes me kinda sad to see his life go to shit, cause he is a tallented actor. Eric Bana was a bad-ass in this movie. He moves like a panther and doesn't seem scared but determined. Ewan McGregor plays Ranger Specialist Grimes. He is very comfortable with his position of being behind the desk and out of the fighting scene. But when his time comes it's a big surprise at how he handles himself in the crossfire.
Plenty of action in this film. It's loaded with plenty of exploisions, blood, and gore. It's sad, funny, and like any war film, scary that people go through this. It's not a movie I would watch again. I just don't watch most war flicks more than once."
April 29, 2009
LWOODS04
♥˩ƳИИ ƜѲѲƉƧ♥

Super Reviewer

Brutally concieved film about the horrors of war, but also alarmingly patriotic film with it's disgusting "America fuck yeah!" approach.
Among with his talented photographer Slawomir Idziak, director Ridley Scott takes us in the middle of one of the most complex military operations in the USA-history. This is film about Americans as heroes and Somalis as a bad guys. In war there are only casualties, but oddly Scott still is more concerned about American troops than any of Somalis. Somalis which are here called racistically as skinnies are nothing but cattle who run towards their enemies while screaming. This approach is very typical in American war-entertainment. When Americans does something, it is often heroic and shot with heroic slow motion underlined by Hans Zimmer's noisy music.
The whole topic of destruction and despair that nearly 100 army rangers with support of delta forces went through in 1993 Mogadishu, Somalia, when 1-hour mission was extended into over 15-hours mission where 19 americans and approximetely 1000 somalis died makes Black Hawk Down a tough film to sit through. It's subject matter is extremely graphic and dark and it is also a film that leaves nothing for the imagination of the viewer. It is pure in your face experience that shows every nasty and gory detail of the operation gone horribly wrong.
Scott is trying to make this technically impressive and mostly succeeds but then again what is there to left if there is no interesting characters or screenplay to make it worthwile? Quite honestly this film relies too much on the visual mayhem and leaves characters at the background. The soldiers in the film feels more like a cardboard characters and we hardly get to know any of them.
Overall i find Black Hawk Down disgusting advertisement for American military. It is actually more closer to an straightforward propaganda-film than objective insight into war. This is noisy and disgusting film that gave me only a headache.
October 25, 2009
emilkakko

Super Reviewer

    1. Twombly: We almost fucking killed you! Well, come to us!
    2. Yurek: Fuck you! Come to me!
    – Submitted by Miguel V (2 months ago)
    1. Ruiz: Don't go back out without me.
    – Submitted by The Vinh H (3 months ago)
    1. Steele: Anybody comes through that door, you give 'em two in the chest and one in the head.
    – Submitted by Sooraj S (18 months ago)
    1. Delta Sgt. First Class "Hoot" Gibson: Y'know what I think? Don't really matter what I think. Once that first bullet goes past your head, politics and all that shit just goes right out the window.
    – Submitted by Sam B (22 months ago)
    1. Harrell: We've got a Black Hawk down. We've got a Black Hawk down.
    – Submitted by Conner F (2 years ago)
    1. Yurek: What's wrong with him?
    2. Twombly: Oh, he's deaf. My fault.
    – Submitted by Conner F (2 years ago)

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