What would have happened had Private Jessica Lynch been captured by Iraqi militia, handed over to an angry mob of residents who then proceeded to murder her and drag her body through the streets of Baghdad? Would the US government, withered by public pressure, have withdrawn troops from Iraq? Would the price paid by Lynch and her loved ones been justifiable for the greater good of an end to the US military action in Iraq?
Questions like these keep cropping up when looking back at the Mogadishu ‘incident’ in Somalia in 1993 when US troops suffered heavy losses in streetfighting with militias and the ignominy of seeing a captured US soldier killed on the streets and dragged through the streets by the Somalian populace, an image that was broadcast to every household on international television networks. Suddenly the ugly spectre of war came uncomfortably close to American civilians, prompting a public outrage that forced the Clinton government to pull out of Somalia.
This battle on the streets of Mogadishu has been captured faithfully by Ridley Scott in his war epic Black Hawk Down. In true war movie style, the film is a prolonged battle scene captured from multiple points of view that exhausts and numbs the viewer with the sheer ferocity, brutality and mindlessness of urban warfare. Not in true war movie style, Scott has no pro or anti-war message for the audience, no deliberations on the purpose of the US mission in Somalia or the wider interpretations of US involvement in international affairs.
Instead, he focuses on the managerial aspects of the mission – the mission plan and how things went terribly wrong and what the soldiers trapped in a hostile zone did to get themselves and their comrades to relative safety. The result is tough, technically accomplished and austere cinema.
The film opens with a haunting montage, suitably backed by an African song, of a starving village somewhere in Somalia where people walk, ghost-like, across an eerie landscape, tending to their dead while gazing at the remaining few who lie in their last moments, their bodies and souls carved out by persistent hunger.
The world had woken up to Somalia, ravaged by civil war between warring militias, who had now taken to controlling the distribution of food across the country as a strategic tool, a tactic also used by Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Faced with the prospect of looking at famine-induced deaths on a massive scale, the US send a deployment of marines to assist UN peacekeepers restore supplies of food and essential supplies by aid agencies.
A ruthless and particularly clever warlord, Mohamed Farrah Aidid, waits for the dust to settle and for the US marines to withdraw before launching a vicious attack on the UN peacekeepers, killing a detachment of Pakistani soldiers. Aidid takes over the food distribution networks, terrorising civilians and aid agencies alike, using hunger as a negotiating chip and ensuring the acquiescence of the local people.
The US, surprised by Aidid and urged by the West, decide to take out Aidid and his inner circle by sending in an elite force comprised of Special Operations Force Detachment – Delta, popularly known as Delta Force, and US Rangers. This is the strand where Scott begins his exploration of “Irene”, the mission to take out Aidid which, as we are soon to see, hurtles into confusion and mayhem.
There is little room in this sort of film to sketch in details of characters or to build up sub-plots. Scott does not try too hard either. Instead, he dedicates a few opening scenes to outline the volatile situation faced by Western armies in the middle of a civil war and the layout and atmosphere in Somalia. Funnily enough, the best lines and the most beautiful shots take place in this first hour before the mission is launched and the final battle begins.
Of these – Atto, an arms dealer and a member of Aidid’s inner circle, is kidnapped by US forces and taken to the US base where he calmly offers a Cuban cigar to General Garrison, chief of special operations in Somalia. While Garrison looks on, Atto lays bare the weaknesses of international intervention in civil wars, in particular, the knowledge of the warring parties that sometime in the future, such an international force must leave, upon which the real power struggle is resumed. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking that since I grew up without running water I’m simple”, rounds off Atto.
Of these – an early morning aerial shot of a muezzin reciting the morning prayers from a beautiful mosque as the sun rises over the coast in the distance and the bombed out Mogadishu cityscape surrounding the mosque fills the screen. On the beach, a militia member bows rhythmically to the prayer, then folds his prayer mat and picks up his AK 47. The disconnect between a people who exercise the rigorous discipline of praying to a strict religious code several times a day and the clinical brutality they inflict upon each other is expressed briefly and well.
Ridley Scott also draws on two soldier stereotypes that have been explored in Hollywood war movies before. One is the young, freshly trained, gung-ho private who cannot wait to put his newly acquired fighting skills to use but dies due to a freak accident even before the fighting begins. Private First Class Todd Blackburn (serial number 72163427) is such a character in the actual incident who has been dramatized in the movie. Blackburn reports to the base, is enlisted in the attack "chalk" or troop and falls 70 feet to his death, trying to rope his way down from the helicopter to his position.
Another is the soldier who is deployed to all the "hot zones" in the world but never actually engages in combat. Ewan McGregor plays such a character in solidly understated fashion. He plays the Ranger who is well known around the base for his typing and coffee-machine skills and bears the cynicism of one who knows a real soldier is one who has combat experience. In these and other depictions of life for young American soldiers in a forward base, the director draws an intimate scene with his camera.
To business - because this is a movie that does not have or depend on much of a plot. The mission is for the "D-boys" to make a quick snatch of two top Aidid aides, his political adviser and interior minister, and with cover from the Rangers, bring them back to base, ostensibly to gather information about Aidid's operations as well as to persuade him to surrender. The combined force of Delta unit special forces and Army Rangers is brought in by a convoy of helicopters and humvees, only to realise that the Somalians had been forewarned and had encircled them with the help of superior local intelligence.
The snatch is pulled off without a hitch but then a rocket propelled grenade fired by a militiaman brings down a Black Hawk transport helicopter. As the airwaves fill with the shrill cries of "Black Hawk down....Black Hawk down", General Garrison prophetically remarks: "We've just lost the initiative." The rest of the film is about the troops attempting a withdrawal to the safe haven of a football stadium manned by UN peacekeepers and the race to do it before an angry Somalian mob and trained militias tear them apart.
This is easily one of the best war movies shot although it does make a concession to popular sentiment. The actual incident of the dead American soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu is shown in a veiled manner, leaving the audience to imagine what really happened. The studios and the director obviously anticipated that the misery of that event should not be inflicted on the American cinegoing public again.