When U.S. Rangers and an elite Delta Force team attempt to kidnap two underlings of a Somali warlord, their Black Hawk helicopters are shot down, and the Americans suffer heavy casualties, facing intense fighting from the militia on the ground.
[D]efinitely worth seeing for those amazing battle sequences.
– Richard Roeper,
Ebert & Roeper,
24 Jan 2002
fresh:
A first-rate war movie that presents its subject so horrifyingly well that it doesn't need to probe or preach.
– Michael Wilmington,
Chicago Tribune,
20 Jul 2002
rotten:
A relentless immersion in combat strikingly realized but none too pleasurable to sit through.
– Todd McCarthy,
Variety,
2 Jan 2009
fresh:
Black Hawk Down makes that point without preachment, in precise and pitiless imagery. And for that reason alone it takes its place on the very short list of the unforgettable movies about war and its ineradicable and immeasurable costs.
– Richard Schickel,
TIME Magazine,
8 Nov 2011
fresh:
I also don't know how well this 2001 drama represents the events of October 3 and 4, 1993, though I can see that it represents them in a realist vein, referring to other war movies without becoming frivolous.