Black Hawk Down [Blu-ray]

Best movie ever. Love the action, music and realness

This is the story of the disastrous raid in Mogadishu on October 3rd, 1993. (The battle lasted over to the next morning, meaning the soldiers were trapped with dwindling ammo, no food, and little if any water in that climate overnight.) Several of the men who participated in that battle served as advisors or extras on the film, which resulted in one Ranger getting his SAG card! There were a few teensy errors----a couple pieces of music on the soundtrack weren't released at the time, the Grisham book seen in one scene wasn't released in paperback at the time----but it did a very good job in displaying what real combat is like, without going too far in one direction or another, as civilians are wont to do when depicting soldiers. We either wind up getting shown as emotionless robots or overly emotional wrecks. The raid was doomed from the beginning, as Colonel Bobby McKnight dryly points out. "Daytime, in the afternoon, when they're all (non-Amazon-approved expletive) up on khat, in the one part of the city where they can muster resistance at the drop of a hat? What's not to like?" (Paraphrased.) Soldiers pride themselves on their bearing, their self control, their strength, so there were a few scenes that were a little 'actorish' but not nearly as often as one finds them in other, less serious, movies. (It's easier, I suspect, to portray emotions than to first attain self control and portray controlled-emotions spilling out due to extreme conditions.) The Army wanted to go in to get a bunch of Aidid henchmen, but their own lax security meant that the population was ready for them. One guy in the book mused on the various flaws in their security: the aircraft hanger they were in faced the city so anybody with binoculars could see when the troops started running around getting ready, plus it was protected only by Hescos by the chow hall, so all it would take was one suicide bomber at chow time and you'd take out a whole squad at least. There's one extremely low-key but chilling scene where the Blackhawks are flying into the city and a kid with an early-era cell phone holds it up to catch the sound of the rotars---and the soldiers think the kid is waving. By the time the choppers get to the target area, the tire fires are burning, funeral pyres for victims that still have a short while to live. Two choppers down meant the mission lost the 'initiative', a term that has a lot of meaning for soldiers, some of it nearly superstitious. The personnel from the choppers had to be rescued, even if they were dead, but the fighting was so incredible that the bodies of Shughart and Gordon wound up getting left behind to be dragged through the streets. The bravery of Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart was given a matter-of-fact treatment that might have reduced the impact on civilians, but Sam Sheppard's dry, pained questioning of the two made it clear that they knew they were going to almost certain death. The film also captured what looked like realistic shooting; the Americans tended to pick their shots carefully, while the Somalians sprayed, which is what so many directors have so many characters do in far too many movies. In real life, sometimes one finds civilians get bribed to do this for fifty bucks and the emptying of a certain number of magazines. The movie has an amazing cast of headliners in every role, from Sam Sheppard as General Garrison, to Jason Isaacs as Captain Steele. A couple of the REAL pilots from the battle flew the choppers, and some of the extras were portrayed by participants as well. (I noted with some amusement that the actors were put through a truncated version of one of the courses I took during my first enlistment!) When one thinks of what this movie would have been like in other hands, it's enough to make one cringe. The high-powered cast makes the characters memorable, because battles don't leave a lot of room for lengthy speeches, and the only glitches---as I noted---are minor and mostly necessary to compress Mark Bowden's excellent book down into three hours. The score was instantly recognizable as one of Hans Zimmer's, and it's interesting to spot faces that Scott went on to use again, as he often does. This review comes from one of the few times I've been able to watch the movie. Its accuracy can make it hard viewing for anybody who's gone through anything of the sort, while Hollywood tripe tends to be comfortingly entertaining thank to its very unreality. For civilians, this gives you a taste of what it's like.

They were happy watching the movie. I had watched it years ago and watched it again with them. Not too much on renting movies but it is what it is.

fantastic depiction of a bad op

One leaves the theater breathless after seeing "Black Hawk Down". Now, with my new DVD in hand, I am pleased to be able to see this film whenever I like. This is, most simply put, the most grittily realistic and overpoweringly authentic and accurate depiction of modern combat imaginable. This is the closest we ordinary citizens can come to the actual experience, as we are sucked involuntarily into the terrifying vortex of the world of modern combat. We careen into combat with the young volunteers, our hearts pounding, the sweat pouring off us as we go, feeling our blood pressure rise as we rappel breathlessly down with them to the hard dusty ground! Of course, with Ridley Scott involved, one comes to expect such amazingly spellbinding theatrics, yet this movie threads quickly along the well-greased storyline provided in the best selling book, adding the sharp, quicksilver dimensions of reality only such a stunningly visual depiction can offer in addition. And, from the anxious hand tremors of a young trooper about to descend into the madness of a flurry of hostile gunfire to the knowing worried glances a special forces combatant exchanges with one of his men, this is a superbly acted, casted, and choreographed set of battle scenes. And the scenes go relentlessly on and on.Precious little time is wasted here providing the outlines of what turns out to be a mission from Hell; policy makers in Washington (read Secretary Albright here, trying to show she could out-testosterone the guys) decide this bunch of cravenly aggressive mercenary tribes can be corralled and democratized, that Somalia can become an instant shining example of our new-found powers of nation-making, and the American peace-keeping forces are suddenly tasked with missions for which they are ill-equipped. Without sufficient armor or enough reaction troop strength, the command orders a kidnap mission to eliminate one of the warlords who is most actively opposing the new "pie-in-the=sky" political objectives, and a small force of young troopers are dispatched in several helicopters to make a quick-strike raid into the heart of Mogadishu. Just as they have reached the point of accomplishing their mission, a helicopter is shot down, and all at once, hell breaks loose.Yet this is truly just the beginning. The story of how these men stood their ground, how exceedingly well they fought, and how savagely they staved off the vastly superior numbers of local opponents who were well armed and supplied is only now becoming the stuff of legend. The real question one is left with after seeing the movie (or after reading the wonderful book, as well) is how such a valiant and well-executed action could have ever been described by both our government and the press as a defeat. It is more a lesson in the extraordinary and shameful timidity of everyone in the chain of command, from Madeline Albright to Colin Powell to the Secretary of Defense on down, who refused the Battle Scene Commander the resources he requested, that literally doomed the mission once things began to go awry.Therefore, while we did unfortunately lose eighteen men, we also inflicted hundreds of casualties on the opposing forces, and finally were able to successfully evacuate the balance of the American forces after having engaged the street fighters for an incredibly extended period of time. This engagement and the kind of men who fought in it should be sung of in battle hymns, not decried as evidence of American softness or lack of a will to fight. As always, the fault in the action lies not in the ferocious young men who fought and died so courageously and so well, but in the despicable and all too-human failures of their leaders and their government to use them wisely, to take greater care in placing them so carelessly in harm's way. Simply put, this is a great film, easily one of the best war films ever produced, and one I can heartily recommend! Enjoy!

La película llegó a tiempo y en buen estado. La película se ve genial, una gran obra visual, viene con una versión extendida y eso lo enriquece más, el audio se escucha genial, ya sea en ingles o en español, viene con subtitulos en español.

Filme muito bom, fiquei muito satisfeito, tem áudio em Português nos dois discos. O único problema foi com a Amazon que mudou duas vezes a data da entrega atrasando.

I love movie's based on true events and this one is really good at telling the story of the US army went through during there deployment to Somalia

Black Hawk Down - Steelbook ( [Alemania] [Blu-ray (+ DVD) [Alemania] no trae castellano ni subtitulos pero por el precio de 5 euros la compre

Gostei muito da compra um filme muito top tem áudio em português do Brasil. Pode comprar que vão gosta muito da compra.