Black Hawk Down (2001)

123 elite U.S. soldiers drop into Somalia to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord and find themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily-armed Somalis.

Director:

Ridley Scott

Writers:

Mark Bowden (book), Ken Nolan (screenplay)

Stars:

Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore

Won 2 Oscars. Another 7 wins & 37 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Josh Hartnett	...	Eversmann
Ewan McGregor	...	Grimes
Tom Sizemore	...	McKnight
Eric Bana	...	Hoot
William Fichtner	...	Sanderson
Ewen Bremner	...	Nelson
Sam Shepard	...	Garrison
Gabriel Casseus	...	Kurth
Kim Coates	...	Wex
Hugh Dancy	...	Schmid
Ron Eldard	...	Durant
Ioan Gruffudd	...	Beales
Tom Guiry	...	Yurek (as Thomas Guiry)
Charlie Hofheimer	...	Smith
Danny Hoch	...	Pilla

Storyline

Action/war drama based on the best-selling book detailing a near-disastrous mission in Somalia on October 3, 1993. On this date nearly 100 U.S. Army Rangers, commanded by Capt. Mike Steele, were dropped by helicopter deep into the capital city of Mogadishu to capture two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord. This lead to a large and drawn-out firefight between the Rangers and hundreds of Somali gunmen, leading to the destruction of two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters. This film focuses on the heroic efforts of various Rangers to get to the downed black hawks, centering on Sgt. Eversmann, leading the Ranger unit Chalk Four to the first black hawk crash site, Warrant Officer Durant who was captured after being the only survivor of the second black hawk crash, as well as many others who were involved.

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Plot Keywords:

somali | warlord | helicopter | somalia | army | 

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Taglines:

Reporting for Duty Christmas 2001

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Genres:

Drama | History | War

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for intense, realistic, graphic war violence, and for language

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA UK

Language:

English Somali

Release Date:

18 January 2002 (USA)

Also Known As:

La chute du faucon noir

Filming Locations:

Morocco

Box Office

Budget:

$92,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$193,021 (USA) (4 January 2002)

Gross:

$108,638,745 (USA) (12 April 2002)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Revolution Studios, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Scott Free Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

144 min 152 min (extended)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS (8 channels)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The sequence of events near the end of the movie, where some of the US Rangers were forced to run, unprotected, behind the rescue convoy, did indeed happen. This unfortunate turn of events was named by the soldiers after the battle as "The Mogadishu Mile".

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Goofs

Just after the task force takes off from the airfield, they pass over a kid with a cell phone who call's the militia leader to warn him. The militia leader is told, "Ma-alint" which has come to mean "Rangers" in the language of modern Somalia. But that is really an abbreviation of "Ma-alinti Rangers" which is a National Holiday in Somalia celebrated on the anniversary of the battle, October 3rd. The phrase did not exist until the year after the battle.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Dan Busch: There. Technicals, nine o'clock.

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Crazy Credits

There are no studio logos at the beginning and the only opening credit is the title.

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Connections

Referenced in Nothing Like the Holidays (2008)

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Soundtracks

Falling to Pieces
Written by Michael Bordin, Roddy Bottum, Bill Gould, James Martin and Mike Patton
Performed by Faith No More
Courtesy of Slash Records/London-Sire Records Ltd.
By Arrangement with Warner Special Products

User Reviews

one of the best ACCURATE war movies

Unlike most of the war movies of our time, Black Hawk Down sticks to the facts about what happened in Mogadishu and doesn't romanticize the story. To support this observation, the viewer will notice that there is not really one main character. This shows that the film focuses more on what happened in Somalia instead of on the characters personality and/or struggles. Another important aspect of the film that makes it so great is the cinematography. Not only was the setting of the film accurate to the real thing, but the way that the movie was filmed is great because it seems like someone is running along the battle scene getting everything on tape. In addition, the film contains small aspects that one may not notice that are important to the situation in Mogadishu. For instance, the bullet shells that fell from the firing helicopter fell into one of the soldiers' vests, and he scrambled to get it out because of how hot it was. This small detail makes the movie that much more realistic. To conclude, Black Hawk Down is a great movie that is both an eye opener that sticks to the facts as well as a quality film. I recommend this movie to any war-film fan, as well as anyone that likes watching movies in general.