Popular reviews

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  Review by Lee Curtis ★★★★½ 3

  Scott described the film as ‘anti-war, but pro-military’ and that is certainly true. There’s no single star-lead protagonist, but a team of individual heroes. There’s no sentimental bullshit; showing the families back home or close-ups of American flags fluttering in the wind. Instead Scott bravely removes these genre clichés and replaces them with the gritty reality of war.

  Typically of Scott there’s an incredible attention to detail, with even something as small as a hot shell casing burning a soldier’s skin reflecting the terrors of war. The film is, in every aspect, beautiful in its creation. From the diversified camera angles of Sławomir Idziak’s breathtaking cinematography and the exemplary slow-motion sequences of Pietro Scalia’s edit to the sound team’s elaborate design and Hans Zimmer’s stunning score, Black Hawk Down is a gloriously immersive piece of cinema, a joy to watch and ultimately a masterpiece of its genre.

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  Review by Patrick Willems ★★★★ 3

  Man, war looks really, really bad.

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  Review by ScreeningNotes ★★ 15

  This really isn't my cup of tea so I'll be brief. The movie is incredibly tense and visceral, although it doesn't quite reach the level of something like Saving Private Ryan. It is also mostly on the right side of its politics with regards to war in general and the Battle of Mogadishu specifically (this half is a bit fuzzier). But for me there's just way too much of this:

  Shot: people shooting guns
  Reverse-shot: bullets ricocheting off of stuff
  Shot: people shooting guns
  Reverse-shot: people falling over
  Shot: people shooting guns
  Reverse-shot: stuff exploding

  I don't mean to disparage the film or its fans, I just prefer a different style of action movie.

  Ridley Scott Ranked

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★★½

  Scott's fetish for and power over this material is staggering; structurally it's his ZODIAC, for good or ill, buffered by Idziak's incredibly tactile transmissions of hot metal and black smoke. furthermore it plays today like an accidentally prescient microcosm of blowback from the 12 years of American hegemonic intervention that's come since (and reflects our complicated response to same). the first act repeatedly questions both our and the soldiers' relationship to the violence they're about to inflict before necessarily tossing that "out the window" for a purely subjective survival narrative. in order to protect themselves and their fellows, the soldiers can simply no longer allow themselves to consider the political ramifications of this event or the earthshaking loss of life…

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  Review by Two Cineasts ★★★★½ 10

  "Only the dead have seen the end of war."
  (Plato)

  
  ADRENALINE PUMPING WAR WHICH RENOUNCES EVERYTHING UNNECESSARY, TO TELL A PURE BLOODBOILING STORY THROUGH THE GREAT VISUALIZATION

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  Review by CinemaVoid 🏴‍☠️ ★★ 2

  So cool the way the US Army brings hope and freedom everywhere it lands. I wish they could bring peace to all nations, but not all nations have oil lol. America is the bestest planet in all of the nation.

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  Review by comrade_yui ★★★★★ 3

  ridley scott has basically no sense of thematic depth or humanity to his films but holy fuck does he know how to make achingly beautiful shots & brutally visceral action sequences. this is a masterclass in sound design & editing, the carnage basically doesn't stop at all after the 20 minute mark, and it's got the muddled ambiguous jingoism that characterizes all the greatest jerry bruckheimer action projects. it also hasn't really aged a day in terms of presentation, the digital effects are still great and the blown-out cinematography has an aggressive, distinct look that hasn't been perfectly replicated to this very day.

  is it racist? oh yeah, definitely. but after a certain point, the consummate artistic craft of a work overtakes any petty thematic concerns that something like this pretends to have. it's pure american entertainment, very hypocritical but also undeniable in sheer scope and showmanship. an essential film for the real fucked-up action-junkie lizard-brains out there, like me.

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★ 2

  Played better for me as a teen when the idea of "what if Saving Private Ryan was put through the Bay/Tony/Bruckheimer filter" was easier to divorce from the queasier elements but this is some of the most technically impressive combat porn ever. It basically defined how this type of film would be stylized for 2 decades and counting and I'd be lying if I said I didn't still get a gnarly thrill out of the gruesomely sustained tactical survival setpieces that border on horror, which is a double-edged sword because that's also exactly what's troubling about it. The comparisons I've seen people make to Starship Troopers or Night of the Living Dead with regard to how this shoots its setting…

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  Review by Jizzmonkey ★★★★ 3

  From a production perspective, this film is incredible, every shot, the color, the casting, the cigar smoking, everything is top-notch. As for the event itself, if the Somali combatants had just paused and aimed a little, they would have had it over with in half an hour.

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  Review by alex 🍌 ★★ 7

  hoo-ah i guess?

  i don't know what to say really - it's a very technically impressive movie but the idea that this is anti-war feels like such nonsense to me. it's happy to abandon facts and nuance to show the american soldiers (who i could barely tell apart despite recognising most of the pretty stacked cast) as courageous, brave, stoic warriors for peace and virtue (?!), willing to do all of the killing necessary to rescue their brothers in arms from a swelling mass of nameless somali soldiers.

  i just really struggle to get invested in war movie narratives when they're presented like this (see also: 1917, dunkirk).

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★½ 10

  Action!: The Scott Brothers – How To Get Screwed By Spielberg Twice W/ Ridley Scott

  The year 2000 was in many ways an era of experimentation for the then-acclaimed director. It's like he decided to try new things after winning his Oscar and had nothing more to prove.

  His first attempt with Hannibal failed miserably, as we have already seen. For his next try the director, however, decides to read from the pages of an unexpected but at the same time more obvious source: his brother Tony.

  I have joked on numerous occasions, if it turned out tomorrow that this movie was in fact directed by Tony Scott, I would not be surprised at all. The frantic style, the cinematography,…

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  Review by Zeeshan Ali ★★★★½

  War at its darkest and saddest.