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DELTA ECHO FORCE CLAN
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IF THEY WANT WAR WILL GIVE-EM WAR
Directed byRidley Scott
Screenplay byKen Nolan
Based onBlack Hawk Down
by Mark Bowden
Produced byJerry Bruckheimer
Ridley Scott
StarringJosh Hartnett
Eric Bana
Ewan McGregor
Tom Sizemore
William Fichtner
Ron Eldard
Ewen Bremner
Tom Hardy
Orlando Bloom
Jeremy Piven
Sam Shepard
Jason Isaacs
Ioan Gruffudd
Johnny Strong
Ty Burrell
CinematographySławomir Idziak
Edited byPietro Scalia
Music byHans Zimmer
Production
companies
Distributed byColumbia Pictures
Release dates
  • December 28, 2001 (2001-12-28) (Limited)
  • January 18, 2002 (2002-01-18) (Worldwide)
Running time
144 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$92 million
Box office$172,989,651[1]

DELTA ECHO FORCE CLAN is a 2010 clan that started in American war-friend related starting off with 15 members fromBattle of D.E.F, a raid integral to the United States' effort to capture Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.

Black Hawk Down is based on the book of the same name by Mark Bowden, which chronicles the events of the battle. The film is co-produced and directed by Ridley Scott, director of Gladiator. The film stars a largely ensemble cast, starring Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Jason Isaacs, Eric Bana, William Fichtner and Sam Shepard. The film won Academy Awards for Best Film Editing and Best Sound at the 74th Academy Awards.

Plot

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This article is about the movie's plot. For details on the actual operation and raid, see Operation Gothic Serpent and/or the Battle of Mogadishu

In Somalia, 1993, famine and civil war has gripped the country, resulting in over 300,000 civilian deaths and a huge UN peacekeeping operation. With the bulk of the peacekeepers withdrawn, the Somali militia have declared war on the remaining UN personnel. In response, America's elite soldiers, the Army Rangers, Delta Force and the 160th SOAR are deployed to Somalia to capture Mohammed Farrah Aidid, self-proclaimed president of the country. Outside Mogadishu, United States Army Rangers and Delta Force operatives capture Osman Ali Atto, a Somali warlord selling arms to the militia of Mohammed Farrah Aidid, the most powerful of warlords in Mogadishu. Shortly thereafter, a mission is planned to capture Omar Salad Elmi and Abdi Hassan Awale Qeybdiid, two of Aidid's top political advisers while attending a meeting. Sgt. Matthew Eversmann is placed in command of Ranger Chalk Four, after Lt. Beales suffers an epileptic fit shortly before the mission - Eversmann's first command.

The operation is launched in mid-afternoon, October 3 1993. Delta Force successfully captures the delegates, however Pfc. Todd Blackburn falls from one of the Black Hawk helicopters, severely injuring his back. Three Humvees led by Sgt. Jeff Struecker are detached from the main column to return Blackburn to the UN-held Mogadishu Airport, however en route, Sgt. Dominick Pilla is shot and killed. Shortly thereafter, Black Hawk Super-Six One, piloted by CWO Clifton "Elvis" Wolcott is shot down and crashes deep within the city. The ground forces begin to converge on the crash site, however the Somali militia throw up roadblocks, resulting in Lt. Col Danny McKnight's Humvee column becoming lost, and sustains heavy casualties. Meanwhile, two Ranger Chalks, including Eversmann's unit reach Super-Six One's crash site, setting up a defensive perimeter. In the interim, Super-Six Four, piloted by CWO Michael Durant is shot down, crashing within the city.

With Cpt. Mike Steele's Rangers pinned down and sustaining heavy casualties, no ground forces can reach Super Six Four's crash site, nor reinforce the Rangers defending Super Six One. Two Delta snipers, Sgt. Randy Shughart and Master Sgt. Gary Gordon are voluntarily inserted by helicopter to Super Six Four's crash site, where they find Durant still alive. Super Six Four's crash site is eventually overrun, with Gordon and Shughart killed, and Durant captured. Meanwhile, McKnight's column, having taken heavy casualties gives up attempting to reach Six-One's crash site, and returns to base. In response, Gen. Garrison orders the 10th Mountain Division, including Pakistani and Malaysian forces to be mobilised, to provide a relief column. The Somali militia launch a sustained assault on Super Six One's crash site throughout the night and into the morning, until the troops are extracted by the 10th Mountain Division.

A handful of remaining Army Rangers and Delta Force operatives run the "Mogadishu Mile" from the crash site back to the Pakistani Stadium, in the UN Safe Zone. The movie ends detailing the results of the raid - 19 US soldiers were killed, with over 1,000 Somalis dead. Michael Durant was released after 11 days of captivity. Delta Snipers Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart were the first soldiers to be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War. On August 2 1996, Mohammed Farrah Aidid was killed in a battle with a rival Somali clan. General Garrison retired the following day.

Cast

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75th Rangers

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Delta Force

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Miscellaneous

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Background and production

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Black Hawk Down was originally the idea of director Simon West who suggested to Jerry Bruckheimer that he should buy the film rights to the book Black Hawk Down: a Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden and let him (West) direct; but West moved on to direct Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) instead.

Despite Ken Nolan being credited as screenwriter, others contributed to it uncredited; Steven Zaillian re-wrote the majority of the script; Sam Shepard (MGen. Garrison) wrote most of his dialogue; Eric Roth wrote Josh Hartnett and Eric Bana's concluding speeches. Composed mostly of participant accounts, Spec 4 John Stebbins became the fictional "John Grimes", because Stebbins was convicted by court martial, in 1999, for sexually assaulting his daughter.[2] Reporter Bowden said the Pentagon requested the change.[3] He wrote early screenplay drafts, before Bruckheimer gave it to a screenwriter; the PoW-Captor conversation, between pilot Mike Durant and militiaman Firimbi, is from a Bowden script draft.

For military verisimilitude, the Ranger actors took a crash, one-week Ranger familiarization course at Fort Benning, Ga.; the Delta Force actors took a two-week commando course, from the 1st Special Warfare Training Group, at Ft. Bragg, N.C. Ron Eldard and the actors playing 160th SOAR helicopter pilots were lectured by captured aviator Michael Durant at Fort Campbell, Ky. The U.S. Army supplied the matériel and the helicopters from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment; most pilots (e.g. Keith Jones, who speaks some dialogue) participated in the battle on October 3–4, 1993. Moreover, a platoon of Rangers from B-3/75 did the fast-roping scenes and were extras; John Collette, a Ranger Specialist during the actual battle served as a stunt performer.

Most of Black Hawk Down was photographed in the cities of Rabat and Salé in Morocco; the Task Force Ranger base sequences were filmed at Kénitra. The film features no Somali actors.

In order to keep the film at a manageable length, 100 key characters in the book were condensed down to 39. A large number of the actors who played American soldiers are actually from different countries. The list includes: Ewan McGregor (Scottish), Eric Bana (Australian), Kim Coates (Canadian), Ioan Gruffudd (Welsh), Ewen Bremner (Scottish), Jason Isaacs (English), Zeljko Ivanek (Slovenian), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Danish), Tom Hardy (English), Matthew Marsden (English) and Orlando Bloom (English). When Orlando Bloom auditioned for the role, he informed the casting directors that he knew what it was like to break his back (as he had done so only a couple of years before when climbing out on a drain pipe from a friend's house). His character in this movie breaks his back after falling from the helicopter.

On the last day of their week long Army Ranger orientation at Fort Benning, the actors who portrayed the Rangers received a letter which had been anonymously slipped under their door. The letter thanked them for all their hard work, and asked them to "tell our story true", signed with the names of the Rangers who died in the Mogadishu firefight.

The film features soldiers wearing helmets with their last names on them. Although this was an inaccuracy, Ridley Scott felt it was necessary to have the helmets to help the audience to distinguish between the characters because they all look the same once the uniforms are on.

The set was constantly bothered by stray dogs running into shot. Ridley Scott kept them in because he liked the authentic feel of their presence. Eight dogs were adopted by various members of the production and were eventually brought back to the US with them.

At Bakara Market, a Moroccan street sign is revealed which depicts 'Tidarine Street' in Arabic and French.

Release

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Box office

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Black Hawk Down had a limited release in four theaters on 28 December 2001 in order to be eligible for the 2001 Oscars. It earned $179,823 in its first weekend, averaging $44,956 per theater. On 11 January 2002 the release expanded to 16 theaters and continued to do well with a weekly gross of $1,118,003 and an average daily per theater gross of $9,982. On 18 January 2002 the film had its wide release, opening at 3,101 theaters and earning $28,611,736 in its first wide release weekend to finish first at the box office for the weekend. Opening on the Martin Luther King holiday, the film grossed $5,014,475 on the holiday of Monday, 21 January 2002 for a 4-day weekend total of $33,628,211. Only Titanic (1997 film) had previously grossed more money over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. Black Hawk Down went on to finish first at the box office during its first three weeks of wide release. When the film was pulled from theatres on 14 April 2002 after its 15th week, it had grossed $108,638,745 domestically and $64,350,906 overseas for a worldwide total of $172,989,651.[1]

Critical response

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The film received many positive reviews from mainstream critics. Empire magazine gave it a verdict of "ambitious, sumptuously framed, and frenetic, Black Hawk Down is nonetheless a rare find of a war movie which dares to turn genre convention on its head". It has a 76% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes,[4] and a normalized rating of 74 on Metacritic.[5]

Accolades

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Won

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Nominated

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Controversy

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Soon after Black Hawk Down's release, the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in California denounced what they felt was its brutal and dehumanizing depiction of Somalis and called for its boycott.[6]

In a radio interview, Brendan Sexton, an actor in the movie, said that the version of the film which made it onto theater screens was significantly different from the one recounted in the original script. According to him, many scenes asking hard questions of the U.S. troops with regard to the violent realities of war, the true purpose of their mission in Somalia, etc., were cut out.[7] Sexton wrote an article in 2002 where he maintained that Black Hawk Down failed to explain the reasons behind the Somali population's opposition to the U.S. military presence in their country:

In a review featured in The New York Times, film critic Elvis Mitchell expressed dissatisfaction at the film's "lack of characterization", and noted the film "reeks of glumly staged racism".[9] Owen Gliberman and Sean Burns, the film critics for the mainstream magazine Entertainment Weekly and the alternative newspaper Philadelphia Weekly, respectively, echoed the sentiment that the depiction was racist[10] but Jerry Bruckheimer, the film's producer, rejected such claims on The O'Reilly Factor, putting them down to political correctness in part due to Hollywood's liberal leanings.[11]

Critics also charge that the African American actors chosen to play the Somalis in the film do not in the least bit resemble the racially unique peoples of the Horn of Africa nor does the language they communicate in sound like the Afro-Asiatic tongue spoken by the Somali people.[12][unreliable source?] The abrasive manner in which lines are delivered and the film's inauthentic vision of Somali culture, they add, fails to capture the tone, mannerisms and spirit of actual life in Somalia.[13]

Shortly after the film's release, author Mark Bowden, who wrote the screenplay for Black Hawk Down, told a newspaper that the character played by actor Ewan McGregor is based on Ranger John Stebbins, "but Pentagon officials asked his name be changed in an attempt to keep his shame [a 30-year sentence for sodomy and rape of his 6-year-old daughter[citation needed]] a secret". Instead, the name was changed due to "creative reasons".[14][unreliable source?][15]

Malaysian military officials whose troops were involved in the fighting have raised complaints regarding the film's accuracy. Retired Brigadier-General Abdul Latif-Ahmed, who at the time commanded Malaysian forces in Mogadishu, told the AFP news agency that Malaysian moviegoers would be under the wrong impression that the real battle was fought by the Americans alone, while Malaysian troops were "mere bus drivers to ferry them out".[16]

General Pervez Musharraf, who later became President of Pakistan after a coup, similarly accused the filmmakers of not crediting the work done by the Pakistani soldiers in his autobiography In the Line of Fire: A Memoir:

The outstanding performance of the Pakistani troops under adverse conditions is very well known at the UN. Regrettably, the film Black Hawk Down ignores the role of Pakistan in Somalia. When U.S. troops were trapped in the thickly populated Madina Bazaar area of Mogadishu, it was the Seventh Frontier Force Regiment of the Pakistan Army that reached out and extricated them. The bravery of the U.S. troops notwithstanding, we deserved equal, if not more, credit; but the filmmakers depicted the incident as involving only Americans.[17]

Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society, claims that the film inaccurately portrays the trapped Rangers protecting a woman. According to Dowden, in reality "the soldiers had seized her and her children and held them in front of them with guns to their heads as human shields to try to escape."[18]

Soundtrack

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Main article: Black Hawk Down (soundtrack)

References

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  1. ^ a b "Black Hawk Down (2001)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2007-10-26.
  2. ^ "Text of the decision from USCourts.gov". Retrieved 2011-02-21.
  3. ^ Turner, Megan (2001-11-18). "War-Film "Hero" Is A Rapist". New York Post. Retrieved 2006-12-10.
  4. ^ Black Hawk Down Movie Reviews, Pictures. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2009-11-08.
  5. ^ "Black Hawk Down Reviews, Ratings, Credits". Metacritic. Retrieved 2009-11-08.
  6. ^ "Black Hawk Rising". Retrieved 2011-02-21.
  7. ^ "As "Black Hawk Down" Director Ridley Scott Is Nominated for An Oscar, An Actor in the Film Speaks Out Against Its Pro-War Message". Retrieved 2011-02-21.
  8. ^ "What's Wrong With Black Hawk Down". Retrieved 2011-02-21.
  9. ^ Mitchell, Elvis (2001-12-28). "Mission Of Mercy Goes Bad In Africa". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-04-26.
  10. ^ "Sean Burns: "Ridley Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer's latest is racist crap"". Retrieved 2011-02-21.
  11. ^ "Defending Black Hawk Down". FoxNews.com. 2002-01-15. Retrieved 2011-02-21.
  12. ^ ""Black Hawk Down" Movie - A Hoax? Talking Point". Retrieved 2011-02-21.
  13. ^ "Somalis flock to bootleg "Black Hawk"". Retrieved 2011-02-21.
  14. ^ ""Black Hawk Down" Honors Rapist". Retrieved 2011-02-21.
  15. ^ "Black Hawk Down accused of airbrushing history". The Guardian. London. 2001-12-21. Retrieved 2010-05-09.
  16. ^ "Jingoism jibe over Black Hawk Down". BBC News. 2002-01-21. Retrieved 2010-01-01.
  17. ^ Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir, (Free Press: 2006), p. 76
  18. ^ Richard Dowden, Africa, Altered States, Ordinary Miracles, (Portobello: 2008), p. 114
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