| | |  | Action & Adventure | Home » » » Black Hawk Down [Blu-ray] | | | | | | | Description: | | From acclaimed director Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Hannibal) and renowned producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pearl Harbor, Armageddon) comes a gripping true story about bravery, camaradarie and the complex reality of war. Black Hawk Down stars an exceptional cast including Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbor), Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge!), Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan), Eric Bana (Chopper), William Fichtner (The Perfect Storm), Ewen Bremner (Snatch) and Sam Shepard (All The Pretty Horses). In 1993, an elite group of American Rangers and Delta Force soldiers are sent to Somalia on a critical mission to capture a violent warlord whose corrupt regime has lead to the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Somalis. When the mission goes terribly wrong, the men find themselves outnumbered and literally fighting for their lives. | | | Features: | |
• From acclaimed director Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Hannibal) and renowned producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pearl Harbor, Armageddon) comes a gripping true story about bravery, camaraderie and the complex reality of war., Black Hawk Down stars an exceptional cast including Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbor), Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge!), Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan), Eric Bana (Chopper), William Fichtner
| | | Product Details: | | | Actors:
| Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana, William Fichtner | | Director:
| Ridley Scott | | Format:
| Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen | | Language:
| English, French | | Subtitle:
| Chinese, English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish | | Number of Discs:
| 1 | | Studio:
| Columbia Pictures | | Run Time:
| 144 minutes | | Blu-ray Release Date:
| November 14, 2006 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 1047 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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 Superb Sound and picture!Mar 18, 2010
I felt like I was sitting inside the helicopter! The sound track is wonderfully mastered and this blu-ray is a must have.
0 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 I hate war moviesMar 11, 2010
I have the impression that Hollywood always hire the same extras for the bad-guys parts, be it native-americans, germans, japanese, latinos, russians, north-koreans, vietnamese, africans, arabs and - I hope soon - aghans, because they're always are...
Definitely retarded: they always swarm in packed hordes to make easy kill dozens of them with one grenade (or one claymore) or slash them by the hundreds with machine guns. And they're so stupid that after seeing they're being killed in the same place, they keep on charging the same spot! Their stupidity is more remarkable when they actually have the chance to really kill a good guy, they always lose time saying something in their barbaric language, or make some fierce grin and gesture before... being killed by another good guy he didn't see!
Eternally bad shots: no matter they carry excellent MP-40s, or Dragunovs, or AK-47s (apparently belt-loaded because they never reload) and shoot thousands and thousands of rounds, they always miss because the good guys never receive even a little scratch of that black cloud of bullets these dummies send... but the marksmanship issue changes dramatically when johnny fires back with only a Colt pistol, because bad guys begin to hit the dirt by the hundreds (it still amazes me how many bullets a pistol magazine holds!). It's a perfect equation... [Hundreds of enemies shooting in automatic] versus [one good guy firing back short bursts] equals [good guy wins, all enemy dead].
Always highly visible even when you can't see them: Good guys - never covering, always walking, never crouching - always kill bad guys by the thousands, no matter how camouflaged in the bush, no matter how hidden in their trenches, no matter how safe behind concrete, now matter how invisible in the dark. It seems that the good guys load their guns with intelligent bullets that follow the enemy, no matter how many curves they have to make to reach the sucker.
Their units never have air or ground support: good guys can spend days in the same position and never a missile, or a mortar, or a shell lands in their zone killing all of them. An when a miserable RPG reaches them, it only lifts earth and makes our heroes shake their heads. It doesn't matter that when an RPG explodes it throws hundreds of fragmented metal around (maybe johnny is immune to metal). At the contrary, when good guys call air or ground support, we know it's the end of the movie, because there will be no more enemies to kill.
They're respectful in the most awkward moments: when a good guy is hit (99% of the times non-fatal) the bad guys stop their attacks so our heroes can take care of the victim, share some tears and spill their usual heroic and patriotic crap, we can hear some sucky melodramatic score music and even (the worst) suckier flashbacks of their lives before... When we see this last thing we know the guy croaks.
I don't wanna enumerate more stuff because someone's gonna accuse me of anti-patriotic, or al-qaida sympathizer, or obamaist, or healt-insurance-socialist.
All I say is that war movies SUCK, not for only being bad but for treating the viewers like dummies... or bad guys.
Anyway, I saw it on TV, so no harm done.
Outstanding...!Mar 04, 2010
This is a fantastic inside look to the adrenalin rush and dangers in modern war. I was glued to this one. Definitely a must see if you enjoy combat/war movies. And one you will watch more than once.
T.
Sydney, Australia.
Feels authentic.Feb 18, 2010
With director Ridley Scott, you never can quite tell if you're going to get something modest but unsatisfactory [Kingdom of Heaven, Body of Lies] or epic filmmaking [Alien, Gladiator.]
Thankfully, with 'Black Hawk Down', Ridley Scott helms an ensemble cast in a modern warfare film that feels and smells authentic. It is 1993, and an elite, military extraction of a high-level priority target, Somalian warlord Mohammed Farrah, by U.S. special forces is derailed when an American helicopter is rocketed down. The extraction mission quickly turns into a search-and-rescue mission as ground and air forces coordinate their efforts to extract Mohammed Farrah as well as bring the downed crew of the helicopter to safety, all while the city of Mogadishu and its fierce militiamen seek to violently repel all American forces.
Most war films centers around core and familiar values of honor, duty, bravery, loyalty, and sacrifice. The audience expects to see these values represented and reaffirmed in the heroes and absconded by the villains. 'Black Hawk Down' is a remarkable piece of filmmaking since it captures the danger of modern warfare with such alarming imminence that we the audience immediately question the wisdom of these values. Nowhere is this tension between moral duty and survival instincts sharply juxtaposed than when the American helicopter is rocketed down and American forces continue to put themselves in harm's way to rescue the downed crew. Even though we the audience are a degree removed from the decision to rescue the downed crew, since we can evaluate all options with the luxury of time and safety, the choice to do the right thing is still hard even for us to agree with since the danger involved in rescuing comrades and brothers-in-arms comes across so authentically. This immersion to the emotional pressure and constraints of war can be credited to Ridley's incredible and artistic handling of the film and the historical events it portrays.
Most war films border on Michael Bay testosterone-and-guns slow-motion music video effect when armed conflict is not treated with a basic respect for loss of life. Ridley Scott, for his part, unflinchingly presents the carnage of modern warfare without ever diluting the human element of an individual's death. American and Somalian casualty alike, no matter how numerous it happens to occur in this film, never seems to be treated lightly or with indifference. In a world torn by war and conflict, men and women full of life and sharing a common link of humanity gun one another down almost senselessly. It is to the film's credit that the graphic violence it presents does not numb the audience to human death but rather elicits a consciousness of the true price of war.
It's always great to see an ensemble cast come together so vibrantly, and 'Black Hawk Down' continues this grand tradition when an ensemble cast clicks. Look for your favorite actors putting in pitch-perfect performances in roles that are either great or small. Tom Sizemore as the unflappable officer. Ewan McGregor as a green rookie. Jeremy Piven as a unconscious pilot. Eric Bana in a strange American accent offering stoic, veteran advice. And Josh Hartnett as a brave commanding soldier is the diamond hidden in the rough.
In conclusion, 'Black Hawk Down' is an incredible piece of filmmaking that has significant resonance in today's political climate and America's current conflict in Afghanistan. War films, when done correctly, honestly portray vulnerable human emotions in a time of bloodshed. They also attest to the spirit that noble values, such as sacrifice and loyalty, are indeed doubted in times of peril, but they nonetheless sustain individuals in times of peril. As I watched the film, I continually wondered aloud, "The Somalian militiamen would never live by the American military creed 'Leave no man behind!' They would make the pragmatic choice of leaving the downed crew in enemy hands." But I thought to myself that a country without noble values is not worth defending.
GreatFeb 10, 2010
This is a great movie for anybody interested in the special forces or is curious about an operation in Somalia.
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