Black Hawk Down (2001) on Netflix
Rangers and Delta Force operators fly into Mogadishu to seize two advisers of the warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Eversmann takes his first Ranger command, and the mission meets heavy fire.
- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb7.7/10459,821 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes76%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1992 a famine in southern Somalia leads the United Nations to authorize a peacekeeping operation, and the militia loyal to Mohamed Farrah Aidid fights the UN force in Mogadishu. President Clinton sends Task Force Ranger, built from the 75th Ranger Regiment, Delta Force operators and 160th SOAR flight crews, to capture Aidid. When the militia seizes a Red Cross food shipment, the Rangers cannot respond under their rules of engagement. A raid outside the city captures the faction leader Osman Ali Atto, who sold arms to Aidid's militia, and the Americans plan a mission to take two of Aidid's closest advisers. Staff Sergeant Matthew Eversmann is given his first command, Chalk Four, which includes the young Private First Class Todd Blackburn and Specialist John Grimes, who had been a desk clerk.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Black Hawk Down (2001)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- On the last day of their week-long Army Ranger orientation at Fort Benning, the actors playing the Rangers found letters slipped under their doors thanking them for their hard work and asking them to 'tell our story true', signed with the names of the men who died in the Mogadishu firefight.
SPOILER
The Ranger renamed as the fictional 'John Grimes' in the film had been convicted by court martial in 1999 of raping his six-year-old daughter, and Mark Bowden said the Pentagon requested the name change to protect its public image.- Soon after the film's release, the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in California called for a boycott over what it called a brutal and dehumanizing depiction of Somalis, and its Minnesota branch also called for a boycott, citing the portrayal of Somalis as 'savage beasts shooting each other.'
- Retired Malaysian Brigadier-General Abdul Latif Ahmad, who commanded Malaysian forces in Mogadishu, told AFP the film would leave Malaysian audiences thinking the Americans fought the battle alone, with Malaysian troops including Cpl Mat Aznan Awang, killed when one of four Malaysian APCs was destroyed, reduced to 'mere bus drivers.'
- The faction leader Osman Ali Atto told the BBC that many aspects of the film were factually incorrect, saying he looked nothing like the actor who portrayed him and neither smoked cigars nor wore earrings; SEAL Team Six sniper Howard E. Wasdin confirmed those details in his 2012 memoirs.
- Disney's Touchstone Pictures originally had the film, but Disney boss Peter Schneider put it into turnaround, citing its subject matter, and sold the project to Revolution Studios.
