The Extended Cut of Black Hawk Down appears amidst numerous other "extended cut" releases; as with most of the other examples of this trend, " this is not a "director's cut"; rather, it's a minor tweak of the film that, in my mind, is just an excuse to re-release the DVD. Here we get just shy of eight minutes of additional footage; even with the breathless exclamation point on the back-cover copy, it's hard to really get worked up over eight minutes more of a film that previously clocked in at 144 minutes anyway. If you've never seen Black Hawk Down before, it's really six of one, half-dozen of the other as to whether to pick up the extended or the theatrical cut, in terms of the movie itself.

That should square things away for viewers who've seen Black Hawk Down already, and were curious about the impact of the additional footage. (Answer: minimal.) What if you haven't seen the film before, though? Is it worth your while?

That's actually an interesting question. I found Black Hawk Down to be a film that wasn't easy to watch. That's usually a code phrase for "very violent and disturbing," and in fact the film does fit that bill. While I never found it to be gratuitously violent, it does present a horrifying and violent situation, with gruesome death being more shocking by its suddenness and seeming arbitrary nature than by the blood and gore. There are also some scenes that are nearly unwatchable (or totally unwatchable, depending on how squeamish you are), particularly one involving battlefield surgery.

But Black Hawk Down is also difficult to watch in terms of the demands it places on the viewer. It's not a conventional war film; in its retelling of a disastrous 1993 mission by US Army Rangers in Somalia, Black Hawk Down focuses on confronting the viewer with the reality of the situation, without conceding any ground to conventional story elements like plot or character development. Black Hawk Down is about a steady descent into chaos; the closest that the film gets to a narrative plotline is "how many things can possibly go wrong?" Characters, in the typical sense of a story, are absent. We don't get to know any of the soldiers involved in the raid beforehand, and (despite the names marked on their helmets) it's almost impossible to keep track of who's who once the firefight gets started.

With plot and character set aside, how does the film expect viewers to connect with the events shown here? That's really the challenge, and that's why Black Hawk Down is, I think, inevitably going to have a divided response. For the most part, the film doesn't invite or encourage you to keep watching; it unfolds events and lets you decide what to make of them. The one element of Black Hawk Down that has the potential to compel viewers to keep watching is the hypnotic quality of its downward spiral. As things go from bad to worse, with resolution of the situation continually just out of reach, there's a certain momentum that builds up, making the viewer want to see where (and how) everything will hit bottom. Some viewers will give up before that point; at over two and a half hours, Black Hawk Down is long enough to make it difficult to just "finish up" if the first part of the film doesn't hook them. And to be honest, if the weird train-wreck magnetism of the film hasn't kicked in at that point, it probably won't. The film's conclusion doesn't pull any rabbits out of hats, instead just taking a moment of calm to put an elegiac touch on the brutal events that have transpired.

What's perhaps most interesting about Black Hawk Down is that resists easy classification as either anti-war or pro-war. On the one hand, it chronicles a disastrous mission in detail, and it's completely straightforward about the essential uselessness of the Rangers' missions in Somalia in terms of the larger picture. On the other hand, the moment-to-moment courage of the soldiers is foregrounded, and the Rangers' commitment to each other and to their mission is clearly presented as commendable. Does that make Black Hawk Down critical or celebratory? I suspect that different viewers will take different views, depending on their point of view going into the film... but at the same time, the juxtaposition of needless death and disaster and matter-of-fact heroism ought to challenge viewers in some way, no matter what their starting point is.

The DVD

Video

Black Hawk Down is presented in its original 2.40:1 widescreen aspect ratio, and is anamorphically enhanced. Ridley Scott has chosen to use extremes of desaturation and contrast to create the right visual experience for the film, and to deliberately use some grain to capture the gritty feeling of events, so the image isn't slick and perfect. With that in mind, it looks like the transfer here does a good job of presenting that rough-edged look on the DVD. There's some edge enhancement, but other than that, the transfer looks just about as I imagine it should.

Audio

The Dolby 5.1 soundtrack here does a nice job of presenting the aggressive sound design. We hear the battle all around us, with the side and rear channels put to good use. The music is well integrated into the overall audio experience as well. It's a nice, solid soundtrack, though not the best 5.1 I've heard.

Extras

The only real special feature here is one that also appeared on the 3-DVD Deluxe Edition: a 60-minute Frontline documentary called "Ambush in Mogadishu" that covers the real-life events that Black Hawk Down is based on. It's a decent choice of bonus material for this release, and is certainly more worthwhile than the typical short promo behind-the-scenes piece. A trailer for the extended edition of The Patriot is also included.

Final thoughts

In the end, I don't think that Black Hawk Down works as well as it could have, but then again, I don't think it's trying to be a typical war film. In that sense, it certainly succeeded; it's unconventional and difficult, refusing to compromise to make itself an easier film. Worth watching? Probably, if you know ahead of time what you're getting into. Overall, the film is worth watching, but the extra eight minutes of additional footage in this "extended edition" don't really amount to much. I certainly do not suggest this as a re-buy for viewers who already have another version of the film. Especially since you can pick up the Superbit edition and get a DTS track (which would seem like a big deal for this film with its Oscar-winning sound), I'll suggest the Extended Cut as a rental at best.