This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a write-up of the unedited version would be more negative

Black Hawk Down is definitely a really intense film. Certainly one that isn’t trying to hold back on your account. The war and its events are not ones that I’m particularly familiar with. This was definitely back before I was really even slightly keeping track of such things. Of course you can still get what is happening really quickly because a lot of wars have very similar motivations and reasons for starting. There will always be serious disagreements across countries and reasons for war, as unfortunate as that might be.

The film mainly takes place in Somalia where a great civil war has started. There is a huge famine so right now you have hundreds of thousands of people dying on both sides which has only increased the bitterness across the board. The United Nations attempted to quiet things down but as soon as the U.S. Marines left then things went crazy again. So now the U.S. is returning to shut everything down but what should have been a 2 week mission has turned into something far greater. With Washington losing patience, the elite soldiers will have to take more drastic measures to assassinate the head of the most violent gang. Can they pull this off?

During the course of the movie, some of the soldiers begin to have some doubts about the mission. Are they really on the right side of this battle and should they be playing the role of the world’s police here? Often times you are not going to get a whole lot of gratitude from people after having served the country which is definitely disheartening. You also have to trust that the intel you are getting is accurate and that you are not fighting on the wrong side here. If you are, then you’re really in trouble.

The film mainly takes the stance that somebody has to put an end to the violence and since America has the means to do so, it’s up to them. I generally do agree with that. It’s hard to just overlook what is going on around the world if you can help it but obviously real life’s not like a video game. When you step in to interfere in any foreign land then you are opening a huge can of worms. It’s a can you should open but it all comes down to execution and being careful not to overextend yourself. In this film the U.S. forces are really put in a very difficult position.

As the title suggests, everything goes wrong once one of the Black Hawks goes down. It triggers a whole lot of events and more lost lives in trying to reclaim the situation. The troops are in heavy enemy territory after all and these guys are not afraid to fight dirty. After a certain point you have to basically assume that everyone walking towards you is an enemy and must be taken down. There are no real exceptions here and you also have to be on the lookout for traps. If you are about to lose, you cannot let yourself be captured alive because that will end up leading you to a much worse fate. For one character I expected the worst but surprisingly he pulled though.

The movie definitely is very dark though so you can expect a whole lot of violence. You really see some very deep wounds across the characters here and one character in particular is beaten really badly. With large scale destruction like this there aren’t really any winners either. You see just how many buildings are blown up and there is a very large death count by the end. Even for the survivors you have to assume there will be some very strong cases of PTSD coming out of this. War always has significant casualties.

Since a great chunk of the movie is the large operation to take down the powerful leaders, there isn’t a lot of time for character development or anything like that. You’ll generally know who each of the characters are but that’s about it. The film tries to add a bit of levity amidst the nonstop doom and gloom with a subplot of two soldiers who were seemingly left behind. They’re trying to catch up to the rest of the group and it’s definitely not an easy adventure for them. One of them is basically deaf by the end. I appreciated the film trying to lighten the mood but to an extent that’s basically an impossible job with this kind of movie due to just how serious the subject matter is.

It’s just crazy dark and even when something violent isn’t happening for a change, you can feel the tension in the air and know that something is about to happen. The film does have a fairly large beginning to set things up so you can stay relaxed for that part. I wouldn’t have minded if the whole film was basically setup since that tends to be the best part. Once they are on the field then things get crazy. The soldiers are also at a disadvantage from the start since they have to follow the proper rules of engagement and fight fair. The enemies have homefield here and tons of people who are eager to fight. Their sheer numbers advantage is crazy high, particularly since the U.S. is completely alone out here except for some backup which only helps out super reluctantly at the very end. Even then they left the soldiers behind to get picked off one by one.

Overall, If you really like war films then I imagine you will enjoy this one as well. It’s definitely very long so the film is able to include all of the details that it wants to. At the same time, it is rather unrelenting and you’re not going to be having a lot of fun with this film. It’s just not that kind of film and for me personally, I like happy movies. They add a little pep to your step which I really appreciate. Of course this film can also work as an informative watch although I would argue in that case it’ll always be easier to just read the Wikipedia article or something like that.