Black.hawk Down

[Nancy Benigar]

BlackHawk Down is a 2001 war film directed and produced by Ridley Scott, and co-produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, from a screenplay by Ken Nolan. It is based on the 1999 eponymous non-fiction book by journalist Mark Bowden, about the crew of a Black Hawk helicopter that was shot down during the Battle of Mogadishu. The film features a large ensemble cast, including Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Jason Isaacs, Sam Shepard, Jeremy Piven, Ioan Gruffudd, Ewen Bremner, Hugh Dancy, and Tom Hardy in his first film role. Orlando Bloom, Ty Burrell, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau also have minor roles.

Black Hawk Down had a limited release on December 28, 2001, and went into the public on January 18, 2002. The film received positive reviews from film critics, although it was criticized for inaccuracies. The film performed modestly well at the box office, grossing $173 million worldwide against a production budget of $92 million. Black Hawk Down won two Academy Awards for Best Film Editing and Best Sound at the 74th Academy Awards.[5] In 2006, an extended cut of the film was released on DVD. The cut contains an additional eight minutes of footage, increasing the running time to 152 minutes. This extended cut was released on Blu-ray and in 4K on May 7, 2019.[6]

Outside Mogadishu, Rangers and Delta Force capture Osman Ali Atto, a faction leader selling arms to Aidid's militia. The U.S. plans a mission to capture Omar Salad Elmi and Abdi Hassan Awale Qeybdiid, two of Aidid's top advisers.

Prior to the mission, Staff Sergeant Matthew Eversmann receives his first command of Ranger Chalk Four after his lieutenant has a seizure. Members of his chalk include fresh 18-year-old Private First Class Todd Blackburn and Specialist John Grimes, a former desk clerk.

The operation begins, and Delta Force operators capture Aidid's advisers inside the target building while the Rangers and helicopters escorting the ground convoy take heavy fire from the rallying militia. Blackburn is severely injured when he falls from one of the Black Hawk helicopters, so three Humvees led by Staff Sergeant Jeff Struecker are detached from the convoy to return Blackburn to the UN-held Mogadishu Airport. Grimes is separated from the rest of Eversmann's chalk after surviving an RPG explosion.

Just after Struecker's column departs, Black Hawk Super Six-One, piloted by Chief Warrant Officer Clifton "Elvis" Wolcott, is shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade. Wolcott and his co-pilot are killed, two crew chiefs are wounded, and two Delta Force snipers on board escape in an MH-6 Little Bird helicopter though one dies later from his wounds.

The ground forces are rerouted to converge on the crash site. The militia erects roadblocks, preventing Lieutenant Colonel Danny McKnight's Humvee column from reaching the area and inflicting heavy casualties. Meanwhile, two Ranger chalks, including Eversmann's unit, reach the crash site and set up a defensive perimeter. However, another helicopter, Super Six-Four piloted by Chief Warrant Officer Michael Durant, is also shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade and crashes several blocks away.

With the primary Ranger forces led by Captain Mike Steele pinned down and sustaining heavy casualties, no ground forces can reach Super Six-Four or reinforce the Rangers defending Super Six-One. Two Delta Force snipers, Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart and Master Sergeant Gary Gordon, are inserted by helicopter to secure Super Six-Four's crash site, where they find Durant still alive. Despite their heroic actions, the site is eventually overrun, Gordon and Shughart are killed, and Durant is captured.

McKnight's column relinquishes their attempt to reach Six-One's crash site and returns to base with their prisoners and the casualties. The men prepare to go back to extract the Rangers and the fallen pilots, and Major General Garrison asks for reinforcements from the 10th Mountain Division, including Malaysian and Pakistani armored units from the U.N. coalition.

As night falls, Aidid's militia launches a sustained assault on the trapped Americans at Super Six-One's crash site. The militants are held off throughout the night by strafing runs and rocket attacks from AH-6J Little Bird helicopter gunships until the 10th Mountain Division's relief column is able to reach the American soldiers. The wounded and casualties are evacuated in the vehicles, but a few Rangers and Delta Force soldiers are forced to run on foot from the crash site to reach the Safe Zone at Mogadishu Stadium.

A textual epilogue reveals Durant was released following 11 days of captivity; Gordon and Shugart became the first soldiers to receive the Medal of Honor posthumously since the Vietnam War, and General Garrison took full responsibility for the mission's outcome, retiring the day after Aidid was killed in August 1996.

Adapting Black Hawk Down: a Story of Modern War (1999) by Mark Bowden was the idea of director Simon West, who suggested to Jerry Bruckheimer that he should buy the film rights and let West direct. West felt too tired after working on Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), so he decided to drop out (West later said that he regretted the decision).[7] Ridley Scott was hired to direct the film after he decided to not work on Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003).[8]

Ken Nolan was credited as screenwriter, and others contributed uncredited: Mark Bowden wrote an adaptation of his own book,[9] Stephen Gaghan was hired to do a rewrite,[10] Steven Zaillian[11] and Ezna Sands[12] rewrote the majority of Gaghan and Nolan's work, actor Sam Shepard (MGen. Garrison) rewrote some of his own dialogue,[13] and Eric Roth wrote Josh Hartnett and Eric Bana's concluding speeches.[11] Ken Nolan was on set for four months rewriting his script and the previous work by Gaghan, Zaillian, and Bowden.[14] He was given sole screenwriting credit by a WGA committee.[15]

The book relied on a dramatization of participant accounts, which were the basis of the movie. SPC John Stebbins was renamed as fictional "John Grimes." Stebbins had been convicted by court martial in 1999 for the rape and forcible sodomy of his six-year-old daughter.[16] Mark Bowden said the Pentagon, ever sensitive about public image, decided to alter factual history by requesting the change.[17] Bowden wrote early screenplay drafts, before Bruckheimer gave it to screenwriter Nolan.[10] The POW-captor conversation, between pilot Mike Durant and militiaman Firimbi, is from a Bowden script draft.

To keep the film at a manageable length, 100 key figures in the book were condensed to 39. The movie also does not feature any Somali actors.[18] Additionally, no Somali consultants were hired for accuracy, according to writer Bowden.[19][20]

For military verisimilitude, the Ranger actors took a one-week Ranger familiarization course at Fort Benning (now Fort Moore), the Delta Force actors took a two-week commando course from the 1st Special Warfare Training Group at Fort Bragg, and Ron Eldard and the actors playing 160th SOAR helicopter pilots were lectured by captured aviator Michael Durant at Fort Campbell.[21]

On the last day of their week-long Army Ranger orientation at Fort Benning, the actors who portrayed the Rangers received letters slipped under their doors. It thanked them for their hard work, and asked them to "tell our story true", signed with the names of the men who died in the Mogadishu firefight.[22] A platoon of Rangers from B-3/75 did the fast-roping scenes and appeared as extras; John Collette, a Ranger Specialist during the battle, served as a stunt performer.[23]

Many of the actors bonded with the soldiers who trained them for their roles. Actor Tom Sizemore said, "What really got me at training camp was the Ranger Creed. I don't think most of us can understand that kind of mutual devotion. It's like having 200 best friends and every single one of them would die for you".[22]

Although the filmmakers considered filming in Jordan, they found the city of Amman too built up and landlocked. Scott and production designer Arthur Max subsequently turned to Morocco, where they had previously worked on Gladiator. Scott preferred that urban setting for authenticity.[22] Most of the film was photographed in the cities of Rabat and Sal; the Task Force Ranger base sequences were filmed at Knitra[24] and Mehdya.

The musical score for Black Hawk Down was composed by Hans Zimmer, who previously collaborated with director Scott on several films including Thelma & Louise (1991) and Gladiator (2000). Zimmer developed the score through a collaboration with a variety of musicians that blended "east African rhythms and sounds with a more conventional synthesizer approach."[25] In doing so, Zimmer avoided a more traditional composition in favor of an experimental approach that would match the tone of the film. "I wanted to do it like the way the movie was," said Zimmer. "So I got myself a band together and we just went into my studio [...] and we'd just be flailing away at the picture, I mean, you know with great energy."[26] A soundtrack album was released on January 15, 2002, by Decca Records.[27]

The film has had a small cultural legacy, which has been studied academically by media analysts dissecting how media reflects American perceptions of war. Newsweek writer Evan Thomas considered the movie one of the most culturally significant films of the George W. Bush presidency. He suggested that, although the film was presented as being anti-war, it was at its core pro-war: "though it depicted a shameful defeat, the soldiers were heroes willing to die for their brothers in arms ... The movie showed brutal scenes of killing, but also courage, stoicism and honor ... The overall effect was stirring, if slightly pornographic, and it seemed to enhance the desire of Americans for a thumping war to avenge 9/11."[35]

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