Black Hawk Down is a style over substance movie, partly on no fault of its own. A tragic mission, with no uplifting ending, filled with hundreds of characters is a difficult story to translate to film.

In late 1993, the U.S. tried to capture the warlord who has torn Somalia apart. The American Rangers and Delta Group encountered more resistance and a greater uprising than they could imagine after trying to end the starvation that killed over 300,000 Somalis. When one of the elite Black Hawk helicopters went down when struck by an enemy RPG rocket, it turned the supposedly 40-minute operation into the most violent and sustained ground fight that American's had been involved in since Viet-Nam.

By nature, the Delta Team and Rangers have numerous members. They both play a great part in the battle and were equally important. The flaw in the film, perhaps sticking too closely to the book, is that no squadron is given the attention and focus to let the audience grow to care about them. In order to show the overall picture, the audience fails to engage with any group of characters. I frequently found myself forgetting about several groups that were split across the city until they were again focused upon.

An excellent cast rounds out a few members in each group. Josh Hartnett portrays an Army Ranger that was promoted to Sergeant at the last minute. Unsure of himself, he is about to find his limits put to the test. Ewan McGregor puts in an understated and excellent performance as Ranger Specialist Daniel Grimes, a desk-jockey that promoted to combat shortly before the operation began. The standout performance comes from Eric Bana as Sgt. First Class Norm "Hoot" Hooten. A combination of several real life characters, he is the epitome of the Delta Class soldier and the wild-card veteran that provides support for the troops.

Director Ridley Scott's recent visual style is combined with the glossy production style of Jerry Bruckheimer to produce a beautiful looking adaptation of a recent tragedy. Scott's fast paced, quick-cut style lends a sense of urgency to the combat sequences. The message to be gained from this film is the heroism and courage that is present in the American military, the ethos of "don't leave a man behind" and the "it's all about the man next to you" mentality. It works as an interesting look into the working of the modern day military, as opposed to the past centered works that dominate popular war movies.

The large cast of characters unfortunately also causes many questions to be unanswered and other things to be glossed over. Only 19 soldiers were killed, but the body count seems higher in the film. The day after watching the film I realized that the fate of captured pilot Chief Warrant Officer Mike Durant (played by ER vet Ron Eldard) was never revealed in the film. After checking, I remember the footnotes at the end of the film relate the fact that he was released days later from captivity. Details like this seemed lost in the massive amount of information that was brought to the screen. A more focused rewrite of the book that the film was based upon would have likely solved some of these problems.

Video: This, like most of Scott's works, is beautiful and visually stunning piece. The transfer here is near flawless. The only noticeable noise is in the menu screens. The Anamorphic transfer preserves the original 2.4:1 aspect almost perfectly, although the numerous text descriptions can be hard to read even on 32" and larger televisions.

Audio: This film won the 2001 Oscar for Best Sound and the DVD does an excellent job of recreating why. The Dolby Digital 5.1 track conveys every explosion, hiss, and effect that's on the screen perfectly. Dialog is timber-matched well enough to always be audible with the rest of the sound. Bright and crisp, it's not as active as the opening to Saving Private Ryan (a favorite demo of mine) but there are no complaints in the audio department at all.

Extras: Typical to Columbia Pictures, this disc is sparse on the extras. Trailers to The One and Spider-Man are included along with a short On The Set featurette. Built like a HBO First Look, this is nothing more than a press documentary that details little of the actual filmmaking and focuses more on the talking head aspect of interviewing as many people as possible. The real soldiers make for the most interesting aspect of the short.

Overall: A style over substance war film isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's not as engrossing as many of the more focused films that have become classics. Excellent directing, production and visuals make it a worthwhile watch, but don't hold up to multiple viewings or long-term scrutiny.