Black Hawk Down (film)

Black Hawk Down
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ridley Scott
Screenplay by	Ken Nolan
Produced by	Jerry Bruckheimer Ridley Scott
Starring	Josh Hartnett Ewan McGregor Tom Sizemore Eric Bana William Fichtner Ewen Bremner Sam Shepard
Cinematography	Sławomir Idziak
Edited by	Pietro Scalia
Music by	Hans Zimmer
Production companies	Revolution Studios Jerry Bruckheimer Films Scott Free Productions
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release dates	December 28, 2001 (2001-12-28) (Limited) January 18, 2002 (2002-01-18) (Worldwide)
Running time	144 minutes
Countries	United States United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$92 million
Box office	$173 million

Black Hawk Down is a 2001 American-British war film directed by Ridley Scott. It is an adaptation of the 1999 book of the same name by Mark Bowden based on his series of articles published in The Philadelphia Inquirer. The 29-part series chronicled the events of a 1993 raid in Mogadishu by the U.S. military aimed at capturing faction leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid and the ensuing Battle of Mogadishu.

The film features a large ensemble cast, including Josh Hartnett, Eric Bana, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner, Jason Isaacs, and Sam Shepard. It won two Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing at the 74th Academy Awards. The movie was received positively by many American film critics, but was strongly criticized by a number of foreign groups and military officials.

Plot

In 1993, following the ousting of the central government and start of a civil war, a major United Nations military operation in Somalia is authorized with a peacekeeping mandate. After the bulk of the peacekeepers are withdrawn, the Mogadishu-based militia loyal to Mohamed Farrah Aidid have declared war on the remaining UN personnel. In response, U.S. Army Rangers, Delta Force counter-terrorist operators, and 160th SOAR aviators are deployed to Mogadishu to capture Aidid, who has proclaimed himself president of the country.

To cement his power and subdue the population in the south, Aided's militia, lead by Yousuf Dahir Mo'alim (Razaaq Adoti), seize Red Cross food shipments, killing anyone who get in their way. A patrolling Black Hawk helicopter "Super Six-Four" piloted by CWO Michael Durant (Ron Eldard) requests permission to engage the militia after witnessing the massacre from above, but is told to stand down and return to base as the situation falls under the UN's jurisdiction. Outside Mogadishu, Delta Force operators capture Osman Ali Atto (George Harris), a faction leader selling arms to Aidid's militia and bring him to their main base at the Mogadishu Airport. Atto is soon interrogated by MG William F. Garrison (Sam Shepard), who states that they will not leave Somalia until they find Aided. Shortly thereafter, a mission is planned to capture Omar Salad Elmi and Abdi Hassan Awale Qeybdiid, two of Aidid's top advisers.

The U.S. forces include experienced men as well as new recruits, including the young and naive PFC Todd Blackburn (Orlando Bloom) and SPC John Grimes (Ewan McGregor), a desk clerk going on his first field mission. SSG Matthew Eversmann (Josh Hartnett) is placed in command of Ranger Chalk Four, his first command, by his commanding officer Cpt. Mike Steele (Jason Isaacs) after his Lieutenant , 1LT Beatles (Ioan Gruffudd), is removed from duty due to an epileptic seizure. In Mogadishu, a local paid by the U.S. Army to find and confirm the location of Aidid's advisors gives the information to Garrison, who soon gives the code word Irene to commence the operation.

The operation, coordinated by LTC Tom Matthews (Glenn Morshower) and LTC Gary Harrell (Željko Ivanek), begins and Delta Force operators, led by SFC Norm "Hoot" Gibson (Eric Bana) and SFC Jeff Sanderson (William Fichtner), capture Aidid's advisers inside the target building. The Rangers and helicopters escorting the ground-extraction convoy take heavy fire, while Eversmann's Chalk Four is dropped a block away by mistake. Blackburn is severely injured after falling from one of the Black Hawk helicopters, so three Humvees led by SSG Jeff Struecker are detached from the convoy to return Blackburn to base. With many of the Ranger's occupied by the incoming militias forces, Hoot and his Delta Team volunteer to assist with the Humvee escort.

SGT Dominick Pilla is shot and killed just as Struecker's column departs, and shortly thereafter Black Hawk Super Six-One, piloted by CWO Clifton "Elvis" Wolcott (Jeremy Piven), is shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) and crashes deep within the city. Both Wolcott and his co pilot are killed on impact, while the two crew chiefs are critically injured. SSG Daniel Busch (Richard Tyson), a Delta Force sniper who survived the crash, pulls himself out of the wreckage and attempts to defend the crash site from incoming militia, but is severely wounded by gunfire. "Chalk Four" soon reach the crash site and provide cover fire for Busch, who is then medevac'd on board one of the Little Bird helicopters.

The ground forces are rerouted to converge on the crash site. The Somali militia erects roadblocks, and LTC Danny McKnight's Humvee column is unable to reach the crash site, while sustaining heavy casualties. Meanwhile, two Ranger Chalks, including Eversmann's unit, reach Super-Six One's crash site and set up a defensive perimeter to await evacuation with the two wounded men and the fallen pilots.

Durant is ordered to take Wolcott's previous position, but is then shot down by an RPG and crashes. Having witnessed the crash several blocks away, Mo'alim leads an enormous mob, consisting of his own militia men and many angry Somalians, to the second crash site. Being the only survivor of the crash, Durant attempts to exit the downed helicopter, but discovers that his leg is broken. Unable to escape, Durant defends himself from incoming militia with an MP5. With CPT 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. Onboard "Super Six-Two", two Delta Force snipers, SFC Randy Shughart (Johnny Strong) and MSG Gary Gordon (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), volunteer to defend the crash site until ground support arrives, but their request is repeatedly denied by command, as Mo'alim's mob has massed to the hundreds.

The two are eventually given permission by LTC Harrell on Garrisons authorization and are inserted by helicopter to Super Six-Four 's crash site, where they find Durant still alive. After pulling him of out the crash, Shughart and Gordon attempt to hold off the incoming Somali insurgents the best they can, but Gordon is eventually killed with a shot to the head. Shughart, shaken by his friend's death, grabs Gordon's CAR-15 and hands it to Durant to use, wishing him good luck before returning to the downed helicopter. Low on ammo, Shughart is eventually surrounded and shot to death by the violent mob, who proceed to strip the dead soldiers of their weapons, clothing and equipment while parading their corpses around the crash site. Durant briefly mourns the fallen Delta Snipers until he is found and captured by Mo'alim's mob.

McKnight's column gives up the attempt to reach Six-One's crash site and returns to base with their prisoners and the casualties. The men prepare to go back to extract the Rangers and the fallen pilots, and MG Garrison sends LTC Joe Cribbs to ask for reinforcements from the 10th Mountain Division, including Malaysian and Pakistani armored units.

As night falls, Aidid's militia, lead again by Mo'alim, launch a sustained assault on the trapped Americans at Super Six-One's crash site. On route to the crash site, Hoot receives an update on the status of the second crash site and is given permission to secure the site, taking his Delta Team and one Ranger with him. When he reaches Durant's crash site, he finds and scares away the remaining members of the mob, who have begun to strip the crashed helicopter of its parts as well as any remaining gear and ammunition onboard. While he is unable to find the bodies of Gordon, Shughart and the rest of "Six-Four"'s crew, Hoot finds a badly damaged Delta helmet and takes a brief moment to mourn his fallen comrades before destroying the remains of the helicopter. Elsewhere, a badly beaten Durant is interrogated by one of Aidid's lieutenants, Firimbi (Treva Etienne). While Durant insists that the U.S. Government will never trade him for Aidid's advisors, Firimbi makes it clear that even if they capture or kill Aided, the killing will still continue.

The militants are held off throughout the night by strafing runs and rocket attacks from AH-6J Little Bird helicopter gunships of the Nightstalkers, until the Pakistani Armed forces belonging to the 10th Mountain Division's relief column is able to reach and save the American soldiers. The wounded and casualties are evacuated in the vehicles, but a handful of Rangers and Delta Force soldiers are forced to run from the crash site back to the stadium, in the Pakistani Compound UN Safe Zone.

The closing credits detail the results of the raid: 19 American soldiers were killed, with over 1,000 Somali militants and civilians dead. Durant was released after 11 days of captivity. Delta Force snipers Gordon and Shughart were the first soldiers to be awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously since the Vietnam War. Two weeks later, President Bill Clinton withdrew the Delta Force and Rangers from Somalia. Major General William F. Garrison accepted full responsibility for the outcome of the raid. On August 1, 1996, Aidid was killed in a battle with a rival faction. General Garrison retired the following day.

Cast

75th Rangers

• Josh Hartnett as SSG Matt Eversmann, the leader of Chalk 4
• Ewan McGregor as SPC John "Grimesey" Grimes, a desk clerk (based on SPC John "Stebby" Stebbins)
• Tom Sizemore as LTC Danny McKnight, the commander of the 3rd Ranger Battalion
• Ewen Bremner as SPC Shawn Nelson, a squad gunner
• Gabriel Casseus as SPC Mike Kurth
• Hugh Dancy as SFC Kurt "Doc" Schmid, a medic of Chalk 4 (portrayed as a Ranger in the film; was Delta Force in real life)
• Ioan Gruffudd as LT John Beales
• Tom Guiry as SSG Ed Yurek
• Charlie Hofheimer as CPL Jamie Smith
• Danny Hoch as SGT Dominick Pilla
• Jason Isaacs as CPT Mike Steele, commander, Bravo Company, 3rd Ranger Battalion
• Brendan Sexton III as PVT Richard "Alphabet" Kowalewski
• Brian Van Holt as SSG Jeff Struecker
• Ian Virgo as PVT John Waddell
• Tom Hardy as SPC Lance Twombly
• Gregory Sporleder as SGT Scott Galentine, the ground radio and telephone communications operator of Chalk 4
• Carmine Giovinazzo as SGT Mike Goodale
• Chris Beetem as SGT Casey Joyce
• Matthew Marsden as SPC Dale Sizemore
• Orlando Bloom as PFC Todd Blackburn
• Enrique Murciano as SGT Lorenzo Ruiz
• Michael Roof as PVT John Maddox
• Tac Fitzgerald as SGT John "Brad" Thomas

Delta Force

• Sam Shepard as MG William F. Garrison, commander of Task Force Ranger
• Eric Bana as SFC Norm "Hoot" Gibson (based on SFC John Macejunas, SFC Norm Hooten and SFC Matthew Rierson)
• William Fichtner as SFC Jeff Sanderson (based on SFC Paul Howe)
• Kim Coates as MSG Chris Wex (based on MSG Tim "Griz" Martin)
• Steven Ford as LTC Joe Cribbs, the Joint Operations Commander who organizes and leads the international peacekeeping column (based on Lee Van Arsdale)
• Željko Ivanek as LTC Gary Harrell, the commander of C Squadron
• Johnny Strong as SFC Randy Shughart, a sniper flying on Black Hawk Super Six-Two
• Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as MSG Gary Gordon, a sniper flying on Black Hawk Super Six-Two
• Richard Tyson as SSG Daniel Busch, a sniper flying on Black Hawk Super Six-One

160th SOAR – Night Stalkers

• Ron Eldard as CW4 Michael Durant, the pilot of Super Six-Four
• Glenn Morshower as LTC Tom Matthews, the commander of 1st Battalion
• Jeremy Piven as CWO Clifton Wolcott, the pilot of Super Six-One, the first Black Hawk down
• Boyd Kestner as CW3 Mike Goffena, the pilot of Super Six-Two who inserts Gordon and Shughart

Miscellaneous

• George Harris as Osman Atto
• Razaaq Adoti as Yousuf Dahir Mo'alim, the Somali militia leader
• Treva Etienne as Firimbi, Somali war chief and Michael Durant's captor
• Ty Burrell as United States Air Force Pararescue Timothy A. Wilkinson.

Background and production

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

Ken Nolan was credited as screenwriter, and others contributed uncredited: Mark Bowden wrote an adaptation of his own book, Steven Gaghan was hired to do a rewrite, Steven Zaillian and Ezna Sands rewrote the majority of the Gaghan and Nolan's work, Sam Shepard (MGen. Garrison) wrote some of his dialogue, and Eric Roth wrote Josh Hartnett and Eric Bana's concluding speeches. Ken Nolan was on set for four months rewriting his script and the previous work by Gaghan, Zaillian, and Bowden. He was given sole screenwriting credit by a WGA committee.

Filming began in March 2001 in Kenitra, Morocco, and concluded in late June.

The book relied on a dramatization of participant accounts, which were the basis of the movie. SPC John Stebbins was renamed as fictional "John Grimes." Stebbins had been convicted by court martial, in 1999, for sexually assaulting his daughter. Mark Bowden said the Pentagon had requested the change. Bowden wrote early screenplay drafts, before Bruckheimer gave it to screenwriter Nolan. 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, the Delta Force actors took a two-week commando course from the 1st Special Warfare Training Group at Fort Bragg, and Ron Eldard and the actors playing 160th SOAR helicopter pilots were lectured by captured aviator Michael Durant at Fort Campbell. The U.S. Army supplied the materiel and the helicopters from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Most pilots (e.g., Keith Jones, who speaks some dialogue) had participated in the historic battle on October 3–4, 1993.

On the last day of their week-long Army Ranger orientation at Fort Benning, the actors who portrayed the Rangers received letters slipped under their doors. It thanked them for their hard work, and asked them to "tell our story true", signed with the names of the men who died in the Mogadishu firefight. A platoon of Rangers from B-3/75 did the fast-roping scenes and appeared as extras; John Collette, a Ranger Specialist during the battle, served as a stunt performer.

Many of the actors bonded with the soldiers who trained them for their roles. Actor Tom Sizemore said, "What really got me at training camp was the Ranger Creed. I don't think most of us can understand that kind of mutual devotion. It's like having 200 best friends and every single one of them would die for you".

Although the filmmakers considered filming in Jordan, they found the city of Amman too built up and landlocked. Scott and production designer Arthur Max subsequently turned to Morocco, where they had previously worked on Gladiator. Scott preferred that urban setting for authenticity. Most of the film was photographed in the cities of Rabat and Salé; the Task Force Ranger base sequences were filmed at Kénitra.

To keep the film at a manageable length, 100 key figures in the book were condensed to 39. The movie also does not feature any Somali actors. Additionally, no Somali consultants were hired for accuracy, according to writer Bowden.

The film features soldiers wearing helmets with their last names on them. Although this was not accurate, director Ridley Scott used this device to help the audience distinguish among the characters because "they all look the same once the uniforms are on".

Release

Box office performance

Black Hawk Down had a limited release in four theaters on December 28, 2001, in order to be eligible for the 2001 Oscars. It earned $179,823 in its first weekend, averaging $44,956 per theater. On January 11, 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 January 18, 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, January 21, 2002, for a 4-day weekend total of $33,628,211. Only Titanic had previously grossed more money over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. Black Hawk Down finished first at the box office during its first three weeks of wide release. When the film was pulled from theatres on April 14, 2002, after its 15th week, it had grossed $108,638,746 domestically and $64,350,906 overseas for a worldwide total of $172,989,651.

Critical response

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". Film critic Mike Clark of USA Today wrote that the film "extols the sheer professionalism of America's elite Delta Force – even in the unforeseen disaster that was 1993's Battle of Mogadishu," and praised Scott's direction: "in relating the conflict, in which 18 Americans died and 70-plus were injured, the standard getting-to-know-you war-film characterizations are downplayed. While some may regard this as a shortcoming, it is, in fact, a virtue". It has a 76% "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with its critics consensus being: "Though it's light on character development and cultural empathy, Black Hawk Down is a visceral, pulse-pounding portrait of war, elevated by Ridley Scott's superb technical skill." It has a rating of 74 on Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

The film has had a small cultural legacy, which has been studied academically by media analysts dissecting how media reflects American perceptions of war. Newsweek writer Evan Thomas considered the movie one of the most culturally significant films of the George W. Bush presidency. He suggested that although the film was presented as being antiwar, it was at its core prowar. He further wrote that "though it depicted a shameful defeat, the soldiers were heroes willing to die for their brothers in arms[...] The movie showed brutal scenes of killing, but also courage, stoicism and honor[...] The overall effect was stirring, if slightly pornographic, and it seemed to enhance the desire of Americans for a thumping war to avenge 9/11."

Stephen A. Klien, writing in Critical Studies in Media Communication, argued that the film's sensational rendering of war had the effect of encouraging audiences to empathize with the film's pro-soldier leitmotif. He suggested that this in turn served to "conflate personal support of American soldiers with support of American military policy" and discourage "critical public discourse concerning justification for and execution of military interventionist policy."

Soundtrack

Main article: Black Hawk Down (soundtrack)

Accolades

Black Hawk Down received four Academy Award nominations for Best Director (lost to A Beautiful Mind) and Best Cinematography (lost to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring) and won two Oscars for Best Sound and Best Film Editing. It also received three BAFTA Award nominations for Best Cinematography, Best Sound and Best Editing.

Award	Category	Nominee	Result
NBR Award	Top Ten Films		Won
AFI Award	Cinematographer of the Year	Slawomir Idziak	Nominated
	Director of the Year	Ridley Scott	Nominated
	Editor of the Year	Pietro Scalia	Nominated
	Movie of the Year	Jerry Bruckheimer Ridley Scott	Nominated
	Production Designer of the Year	Arthur Max	Nominated
Academy Award	Best Film Editing	Pietro Scalia	Won
	Best Sound Mixing	Michael Minkler Myron Nettinga Chris Munro	Won
	Best Cinematography	Slawomir Idziak	Nominated
	Best Director	Ridley Scott	Nominated
Saturn Award	Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film		Nominated
Eddie Award	Best Edited Feature Film – Dramatic	Pietro Scalia	Won
ADG Excellence in Production Design Award	Contemporary Film	Keith Pain Marco Trentini Gianni Giovagnoni Cliff Robinson Pier Luigi Basile Ivo Husnjak Arthur Max	Nominated
Harry Award			Won
BAFTA Award	Best Cinematography	Slawomir Idziak	Nominated
	Best Editing	Pietro Scalia	Nominated
	Best Sound	Chris Munro Per Hallberg Michael Minkler Myron Nettinga Karen Baker Landers	Nominated
Golden Reel Award	Best Sound Editing – Dialogue and ADR in a Feature Film	Per Hallberg Karen Baker Landers Chris Jargo Mark L. Mangino Chris Hogan	Won
	Best Sound Editing – Effects & Foley, Domestic Feature Film	Per Hallberg Karen Baker Landers Craig S. Jaeger Jon Title Christopher Assells Dino Dimuro Dan Hegeman Michael A. Reagan Gregory Hainer Perry Robertson Peter Staubli Bruce Tanis Michael Hertlein Solange S. Schwalbe	Won
Plus Camerimage	Golden Frog	Slawomir Idziak	Nominated
Cinema Audio Society Award	Outstanding Sound Mixing for Motion Pictures	Michael Minkler Myron Nettinga Chris Munro	Nominated
Directors Guild of America Award	Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures	Ridley Scott	Nominated
Golden Trailer Award	Best Drama	Trailer Park, Inc.	Nominated
MTV Movie Award	Best Movie		Nominated
	Best Action Sequence	First helicopter crash	Nominated
PFCS Award	Best Acting Ensemble	Eric Bana Ewen Bremner William Fichtner Josh Hartnett Jason Isaacs Ewan McGregor Sam Shepard Tom Sizemore	Nominated
	Best Cinematography	Slawomir Idziak	Nominated
	Best Film Editing	Pietro Scalia	Nominated
Teen Choice Award	Film – Choice Actor, Drama/Action Adventure	Josh Hartnett	Nominated
	Film – Choice Movie, Drama/Action Adventure		Nominated
World Soundtrack Award	Best Original Soundtrack of the Year	Hans Zimmer	Nominated
	Soundtrack Composer of the Year		Nominated
Writers Guild of America Award	Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published	Ken Nolan	Nominated
ASCAP Award	Top Box Office Films	Hans Zimmer (also for The Ring)	Won
DVD Exclusive Award	Best Overall DVD, New Movie (Including All Extra Features)	Charles de Lauzirika (Deluxe Edition)	Nominated
Saturn Award	Best DVD Special Edition Release		Nominated

Controversies and inaccuracies

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.

In a radio interview, Brendan Sexton, an actor who briefly appeared in the movie, said the version of the film which made it onto theater screens significantly differed 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.

In a review featured in The New York Times, film critic Elvis Mitchell expressed dissatisfaction with the film's "lack of characterization", and opined that the film "reeks of glumly staged racism". Owen Gleiberman 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. Similarly, American film critic Wheeler Winston Dixon found the film's "absence of motivation and characterization" disturbing, and wrote that while American audiences might find the film to be a "paean to patriotism", other audiences might find it to be a "deliberately hostile enterprise"; nevertheless, Dixon lauded the film's "spectacular display of pyrotechnics coupled with equally adroit editing." 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.

Somali nationals charge that the African actors chosen to play the Somalis in the film do not 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. 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. At one screening in Somalia, young men cheered whenever an American soldier's character was shot on screen.

In an interview with the BBC, the faction leader Osman Ali Atto said that many aspects of the film are factually incorrect. He took exception with the ostentatious character chosen to portray him; Ali Atto does not look like the actor who portrayed him, smoke cigars, or wear earrings, facts which were later confirmed by SEAL Team Six sniper Howard E. Wasdin in his 2012 memoirs. Wasdin also indicated that while the character in the movie ridiculed his captors, Atto in reality seemed concerned that Wasdin and his men had been sent to kill rather than apprehend him. Atto additionally stated that he was not consulted about the project or approached for permission, and that the film sequence re-enacting his arrest contained several inaccuracies:

First of all when I was caught on 21 September, I was only travelling with one Fiat 124, not three vehicles as it shows in the film[...] And when the helicopter attacked, people were hurt, people were killed[...] The car we were travelling in, (and) I have got proof, it was hit at least 50 times. And my colleague Ahmed Ali was injured on both legs[...] I think it was not right, the way they portrayed both the individual and the action. It was not right.

Navy SEAL Wasdin similarly remarked that while olive green military rigger's tape was used to mark the roof of the car in question in the movie, his team in actuality managed to track down Atto's whereabouts using a much more sophisticated technique involving the implantation of a homing device in a cane. The cane was then presented as a gift for Atto to a contact who routinely met with him, which eventually led the team directly to the faction leader.

Malaysian military officials whose own troops were involved in the fighting have likewise raised complaints regarding the film's accuracy. Retired Brigadier-General Abdul Latif Ahmad, 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". The film does portray Malaysians contributing to the battle from their vehicles.

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, Musharraf wrote:

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 Malaysian and 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.

See also

• List of films featuring the United States Navy SEALs.

External links

• Official website
• Black Hawk Down at IMDb
• Black Hawk Down at the TCM Movie Database
• Black Hawk Down at AllMovie
• Black Hawk Down at Rotten Tomatoes
• Black Hawk Down at Metacritic
• Black Hawk Down at Box Office Mojo
• Black Hawk Down at the Internet Movie Firearms Database