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Black Hawk Down
EMAILPRINTColumbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 101 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): War
Written by:
Mark Bowden (book)
Ken Nolan
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 28, 2001
DVD: June 11, 2002
Running Time: 144 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for intense, realistic, graphic war violence, and for language
Starring Josh Hartnett, Eric Bana, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Jeremy Piven, Sam Shepard, and Ron Eldard
Director Ridley Scott's adaptation of the true war story of the attack on a group of U.S. special forces sent into Somalia in 1993 to destabilize the government and bring food and humanitarian aid to the starving population.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: A Good Year Alien: The Director's Cut American Gangster Blade Runner: The Director's Cut G.I. Jane Gladiator Hannibal Kingdom of Heaven Matchstick Men Thelma & Louise White Squall
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
His is a triumph of pure filmmaking, a pitiless, unrelenting, no-excuses war movie so thoroughly convincing it's frequently difficult to believe it is a staged re-creation.
Read Full Review >New Times (L.A.) Luke Y. Thompson
Doesn't just kick your ass. It pummels your entire body; it leaves you trembling.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
It takes its place on the very short list of the unforgettable movies about war and its ineradicable and immeasurable costs.
Portland Oregonian Staff (Not credited)
Scott superbly re-creates the sense of individuals facing astounding odds, with barely a few minutes' respite over a 12-hour battle.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Films like this are more useful than gung-ho capers like "Behind Enemy Lines." They help audiences understand and sympathize with the actual experiences of combat troops, instead of trivializing them into entertainments.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
I've rarely seen so selfless a collection of performances and, in a war movie, so general an absence of rhetoric or guff. [25 & 31 Dec 2001, p. 127]
Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
Rivets our interest for its entire lengthy running time. And it does this without any of the usual war movie clichés, false heroics, barracks-humor nonsense or grandstanding absurdities.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
The next worst thing to being there. That's how real it feels.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
A personal best for producer Jerry Bruckheimer, a triumph for Scott and a war film of prodigious power. You will be shaken.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Absolutely harrowing, shocking in its sudden revelatory immediacy, and very, very well done, Black Hawk Down is one of the best depictions of the outright lunacy inherent to battle I have ever seen.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
What we need to remember, what Black Hawk Down reminds us, is that there are no safe missions when you're chasing bad guys. Especially when you have to chase them down a hole.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
An overwhelmingly tactile experience. Scott brings you so close into the action, the grit and smoke and blood seem to spill off the screen and into your head.
ReelViews James Berardinelli
One hell of a ride. For better or for worse, it will leave you stunned and reeling.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
It's one of the most ferociously convincing physical re-creations of warfare ever put on screen.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
Though passionate, doesn't pity or flatter the rank and file.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
As brilliantly shot as it is brutally single-minded, this is a war movie shorn of all its usual accouterments: the battle is the plot.
Washington Post Desson Thomson
You're drawn in, like it or not. You can't get away from the immediacy. Or the feeling that you're getting sucked in, too.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Black Hawk Down, in the end, is a docudrama. But it's sensationally well done, and it opens up a battlefield that needed to be documented.
Read Full Review >New York Post Jonathan Foreman
A beautifully filmed, scrupulously authentic but strangely evasive exercise in combat ultra-realism.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Throw in the music -- a wall-to-wall whorl of Eastern modal dirges, thumping rock and Celtic-y skirl -- and you've got a veritable cinematic rhapsody of war.
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Even an audience moved to tender patriotism might wonder how Scott, a proven master of ''Gladiator''-size visual showmanship, could have bombed away the personality of every man fighting until he's left with nothing more than pure combat.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
Character is almost wholly subordinated to a blast-furnace rendering of the hell into which they're dumped. Seldom will you see so many US military body parts strewn around a movie screen.
Film Threat Tim Merrill
It’s a true endurance test, far too grim to be considered exciting, but not really informative enough to enlighten us about the effect of our presence in Somalia in 1993.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
An endless battle scene in search of a movie. It's every bit as harrowing -- and also every bit as pointless and misguided -- as the botched military mission it depicts.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
In the end, neither the appealing cast -- nor the force of Scott's stunning imagery is enough to make us understand why these men died.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
No doubt captures some of the horror and the chaos of the actual situation, but it makes for a loud, often confusing, and always bloody two and a half hours.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Goes down like stiff medicine, leaving one feeling exhausted relief when it's finally over.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
Sitting through the accomplished but meaningless Black Hawk Down is like being trapped in an action film version of "Groundhog Day," condemned to sit through the same carnage over and over.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Functions mainly as an action extravaganza, and a numbingly depersonalized one at that.
Village Voice J. Hoberman
It's a Jerry Bruckheimer art film, perhaps the most extravagantly aestheticized combat movie ever made.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Perhaps they truly believe war is an inescapable aspect of human life. If so, why make movies that rub our faces in its horror? If artists have no antidote to war's evil or insight into the suffering it brings, their motive in depicting it must be merely to sensationalize its terrors and make money from the morbid fascination it holds for audiences. We deserve better.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 101 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Mark S gave it a3:
Only action and technical prefection are trying to keep this on a high level. That is too poor. The real story is untold and so the audience can't understand real reason, why the riots really began. Unbelievable that Ridley Scott produced such a low-level story. If you look at the picture of the somali-citizens, all of them were showen as brainless, killing terrorists. One of many fault facts which were sold as truth in this movie. Because of showing only the chronology of battle scenes, without telling the whole story of this UN-mission, ths movie will not reach more than 3 points.
[Anonymous] gave it a9:
Ridley Scott does it again. One of his best since Gladiator
jenny b gave it a10:
Black Hawk Down is a movie worth seeing. Non-stop packed action, and thrill. You really see what these soldiers go through. I would rate this movie in my own top 2! Very well done!!
Danny M. gave it a9:
I love the (More then most) realism of this movie! Fingers getting shot off and STAYING SHOT OFF. The characters act like they would in a real battle: Intense, active, and alert. What I also like about Black Hawk Down is that they portray the US Armed Force as heros. "ONLY WORDS IN THE DICTIONARY CAN BE USED IN SCRABBLE!!!"
Matty F. gave it a10:
Finally good to see a movie which doesn't have a fairy tale happy ending. A deep and inspiring movie which delivers enough action and gripping scenes to keep me watching over and over again.
Anthony C gave it a10:
The way the movie was filmed was genious - it added to the sheer chaos of the whole debacle. I do disagree with Josh Hartnett as the main character - I would have liked to see someone else in that role. Some of the lines are a bit cheezy but this is an awesome movie.
Cameron S. gave it an8:
An intense movie in that it doesn't follow the cliche American war movie-- it shows that even the most well planned missions, with the most heavilty armed soldiers can go horribly wrong.
