Black Hawk Down Theme

[Victorio Galindo]

Late in the afternoon of Sunday, October 3, 1993, the soldiers of Task Force Ranger were sent on a mission to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take them about an hour.

Instead, they were pinned down through a long and terrible night in a hostile city, locked in a desperate struggle to kill or be killed. When the unit was finally rescued the following morning, eighteen American soldiers were dead and dozens more badly injured. The Somali toll was far worse: more than five hundred killed and over a thousand wounded.

As chalk leader, he was handed headphones when he took his front seat. They were bulky and had a mouthpiece and were connected by a long black cord to a plug on the ceiling. He took his helmet off and settled the phones over his ears.

There were signs this one would go. The commander of Task Force Ranger, Major General William F. Garrison, had come out to see them off. He had never done that before. A tall, slender, gray-haired man in desert fatigues with half an unlit cigar jutting from the corner of his mouth, Garrison had walked from chopper to chopper and then stooped down by each Humvee.

And the armada launched, lifting off from the shabby airport by the sea into an embracing blue vista of sky and Indian Ocean. They eased out across a littered strip of white sand and moved low and fast over running breakers that formed faint crests parallel to the shore. In close formation they banked and flew down the coastline southwest. From each bird the booted legs of the eager soldiers dangled from the benches and open doors.

The film shows valiant attempts by Special Forces troops to rescue their trapped comrades. It also tries to provide some context as to why the American military as well as UN forces got involved in the conflict. There's some attempt to show why some individuals on both sides were fighting, their motivations for taking up arms.

Tremendous self-sacrifice and sacrifice for the good of other soldiers during moments of intense battle. Movie goes beyond simplistic "good vs evil" to show the different motivations many of the American soldiers had for fighting in Somalia.

EXTREMELY graphic deaths of soldiers (dismemberment, beatings, impaling, etc.). After the set-up of the characters and context for the first 45 minutes, the next 90 minutes are one long battle scene. Graphic imagery of cutting open an injured soldier and getting to his artery to try and keep him alive.

Frequent profanity, including regular use of "f--k" and its variations. "S--t" and "ass." Character makes a gesture with his hand to represent masturbation. Somalis are referred to by some in military slang as "skinnies."

Parents need to know that Black Hawk Down is a 2001 war movie based on the true story of the bravery and grave danger faced by American Special Forces while at war against a brutal warlord and his militia amidst the civil war-ravaged Somali capital Mogadishu. The first 45 minutes or so sets up the context, introduces the officers and soldiers, outlines their mission, and then the next 90 minutes are essentially a nonstop battle of American infantry and helicopters against armed and desperate Somali militia men and boys. The movie does not shy away from war violence -- casualties, blood, and graphic injuries are a constant. Surgery in the midst of battle is performed; soldiers are cut open and entrails are exposed. A nearly cut-off finger dangles from a hand. Frequent profanity, including regular use of "f--k" and its variations. What emerges overall is the bravery and selflessness of the soldiers in the midst of a battle unexpected in its ferocity, as well as an attempt to go beyond simplistic "good versus evil" dramatizations that have historically typified war movies. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.

In the early 1990s a humanitarian crisis in the country of Somalia brought international attention to the region. On October 3, 1993 the United States military sent approximately 120 members of US Special Forces to capture the warlord General Aidid or any of his top lieutenants. This supposedly quick operation turned into a two-day frantic mission and withdrawal. BLACK HAWK DOWN depicts the costly rescue attempt by US Rangers and Delta Operators sent to retrieve men trapped when their black hawk helicopters were downed. Trapped in a Somali war-zone, the soldiers struggle to regroup, save their wounded, and avoid the sights of a frenzied and armed militia. Through hostile fire, already injured men re-enter the war-zone in a valiant attempt to "leave no man behind."

Directed by Ridley Scott (Alien, Thelma and Louise, Gladiator), BLACK HAWK DOWN is a fast-paced trip through blood and guts. Scott's desire for realism comes through in the film's connections to the real US Rangers. Many of the pilots used in the film participated in the actual 1993 conflict. The film does a fine job of creating viewer sympathy for its characters.

Although the action scenes truly serve as the leading lady, the film uses recognizable celebrities to create identification with their characters. Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, and Tom Sizemore provide known faces to a few men caught in the chaos. The film was rewarded for its dramatic battle scenes with Academy Awards for Best Sound and Best Editing.

Families can talk about issues regarding life, death, war, and honor. Why did the soldiers return to the ground to continue fighting? Do you think it was right to send soldiers there in the first place? How may this conflict relate to ones in the present? Parents may also want to discuss this film's historical accuracy by comparing it against a documentary that covers the same events.

THE DUELLISTS, like BARRY LYNDON, is also notable for its evocative use of natural light, especially in interior sequences that utilize a large key source like a window while foregoing any fill, letting the frame fall beautifully off into absolute darkness. This, of course, is how interiors would have naturally looked at the time, before the magic of electricity cast its widespread glow.

His affection for atmospheric, self-contained worldbuilding, owing to his background as an art director and designer, is by far the most dominant signature at play in THE DUELLISTS, with Scott fleshing out this bygone era with every scene while building to an appropriately-cinematic climax amidst the striking ruins of a castle.

This honor befalls executive officer Kane, played memorably by the late, beloved character actor Sir John Hurt. When he tries to get a closer look at one of the eggs, a hideous palm-shaped creature leaps up from it and attaches itself to his face.

A meek, frail man saddled with huge coke-bottle glasses, Tyrell lives atop a towering ziggurat, like some kind of Anglo-Aztec god. His is a quiet, determined menace wrought from a perverted sense of parental pride and creative authorship that will be his ultimate undoing.

Shadows take on a cobalt tinge, further reinforcing the cold future of a nuclear winter, or runaway climate change. Scott and Cronenweth blend formal compositions and camera movements with inspired, experimental visual cues, like the liquid-like shimmering and refracting of light within the cavernous chambers of Tyrell headquarters, or the infamous reflection of a dim red light in the pupils of the replicants (one of the key clues that support the argument of Deckard being an artificial creation himself).

The romantic, jazzy track uses a live saxophone that stands out by sheer virtue of the analog nature of its recording. The sound is used in conjunction with a piano-based love theme, and appears only in sequences that concern the romance between Deckard and Rachael.

The nature of these explorations within ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER share such similar territory that they have somewhat conjoined into a larger shared universe where the androids of the former grew out of the replicants of the latter.

This cut also ends with an ill-advised happy ending, which finds Deckard musing about his hopeful future with Rachael as he whisks her away to a rugged, mountainous landscape comprised of unused aerial footage shot for THE SHINING.

The summer of 1982 saw a wave of high-profile films like STAR TREK II, THE THING, and E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL dominate the box office, leaving very little air for a nihilistic sci-fi noir that critics had dragged for its sluggish pacing and hyper-dense intellectualism.

Despite landing with a whimper, BLADE RUNNER nonetheless found an audience, garnering enough critical regard to land Oscar nominations for Best Art Direction and Best Visual Effects that reinforced its reputation as a visual tour de force.

An International Cut containing added moments of graphic violence was also released in 1982, and for many years thereafter, this cut served as the definitive version of BLADE RUNNER on home video (most notably, the Laserdisc put out by the Criterion Collection).

The warm response to this cut finally brought BLADE RUNNER into the mainstream, its nihilistic sentiments now firmly in line with a time where grunge music dominated pop culture and the approaching turn of the millennium invited musings about fantastical, apocalyptic futures.

That Scott is able to convey so much thematic subtext and world building in a mere 60 seconds is a testament to his innate understanding of the medium and his staggering power as a visual storyteller.

A high-contrast, subdued color palette deals in primarily blue and yellow tones, making for a picture that lacks the warm vibrancy of previous works like WHITE SQUALL or 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE (1992) but rather evokes the cold steeliness of the military-industrial complex.

Signature Scott touches are peppered throughout, populating the film with evocative flourishes like silhouettes, the use of venetian blinds to create noir-style shadows, and even punches of colored smoke during the climax. This sequence also finds Scott deviating from his otherwise-ironclad use of classical camerawork, evoking the chaos of battle by going handheld and experimenting with an interesting technique that rapidly rocks the zoom back and forth.

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