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Black Hawk Down (2001)

tomatometer

76

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

The movie may have skimmed on character development, but the action will keep viewers riveted.

71

Average Rating: 6.5/10
Critic Reviews: 38
Fresh: 27 | Rotten: 11

The movie may have skimmed on character development, but the action will keep viewers riveted.

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, 2 hr. 32 min.

Drama, Action & Adventure

Ken Nolan

Jun 11, 2002

$108.6M

Sony Pictures

Cast

All Critics (170) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (136) | Rotten (41) | DVD (52)

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 | Comment
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 | Comment
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 | Comment
Variety
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 | Comment
Ebert & Roeper
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The next worst thing to being there. That's how real it feels.

January 22, 2002 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment
Washington Post
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 | Comment

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 | Comment
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 | Comment
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 (4)
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 | Comment
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 (7)
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 | Comment
Empire Magazine

[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 | Comment

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 | Comment
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 | Comment

'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 | Comment
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

It's a rather shrewd move to not develop the characters beyond the most limited degree; the cold, wasteful machine-like quality to the destruction comes across all the better without forced melodrama.

January 12, 2004 Full Review Source: Film Threat | Comment
Film Threat
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Black Hawk Down

Overrated to the max. A movie that has action throughout the entire movie with no characterization to be found. When soldiers are hurt, they're simply bodies that bleed blood and then near the end they try to make the audience sympathize with one soldier who is captured... really? Now you try after an hour and thirty

September 18, 2010
Albert Kim

Super Reviewer

An American Black Hawk helicopter is shot down during a raid on a Somali warlord in Mogadishu leading to a desperate rescue mission faced with overwhelming opposition. In Black Hawk Down, Ridley Scott has created one of the most realistic war movies ever made. You really feel like you're in the thick of an urban

November 2, 2006
garyX
xGary Xx

Super Reviewer

    1. Steele: Anybody comes through that door, you give 'em two in the chest and one in the head.
    – Submitted by Sooraj S (2 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 (6 months ago)
    1. Harrell: We've got a Black Hawk down. We've got a Black Hawk down.
    – Submitted by Conner F (8 months ago)
    1. Yurek: What's wrong with him?
    2. Twombly: Oh, he's deaf. My fault.
    – Submitted by Conner F (8 months ago)
    1. Firimbi: You Americans don't smoke anymore. You live long, dull and uninteresting lives.
    – Submitted by Chris P (9 months ago)

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