Never a huge Ridley Scott fan, his two most critically acclaimed films—Alien and Blade Runner—are good (but not great) films, and Academy Award winning Gladiator exaggerates Scott's greatest weakness as a filmmaker: his inability to connect emotionally with his characters and develop them. However, I can no longer write off Scott after seeing Black Hawk Down. He uses his ample talents for creating mood and effective action sequences, and ends up connecting emotionally through the testosterone charged war film.

Even more shocking for me was that the film was co-produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, the "mastermind" behind such low brow, mind numbing flicks like Con Air, The Rock, Armageddon, Gone in Sixty Seconds, and Pearl Harbor. I can't think of a producer I have less respect for, and Black Hawk Down even goes so far as to star Josh Harnett, bringing to mind the previous war effort that was really much more about a love triangle. Just let Jerry blow things to bits and leave out the romantic cliches, and the film has a chance to work with a competent director. No Pearl Harbor filmmaking disaster this time—the all male ensemble cast makes up a complex "buddy" movie with bloodier and more graphic footage than Saving Private Ryan.

Based on Mark Bowden's book about the U.S. military's bungling 1993 mission in Mogadishu, Somalia, Ken Nolan's screenplay focuses far more on character and the nature of war than it does on exploring the political and sociological nature of the conflict. According to the script the U.S. bureaucracy gets involved for humanitarian reasons, and the complexities of the civil war are only hinted at—basically we are told that we can't possibly understand it. And much of the initial battle scenes are difficult to comprehend in spite of the now popular newsline style subtitles to identify dates and locations.

But this fits in with the theme. Just what are we doing in Somalia, and how the hell do we survive when disoriented and being shot at from multi-directions? As confusing as the first volleys are, things get hellish after one of the helicopters is downed in the middle of the city. Like piranhas feasting on an injured cow dumped into the Amazon, swarms of heavily armed natives close in on the helpless soldiers. By the end of the siege over 1,000 Somalis will be killed along with 19 U.S. soldiers, with at least one dragged ingloriously through the streets.

Shades of The Red Badge of Courage creep in with one young gung-ho Army Ranger arriving in Somalia to "kick some ass"—of course, Sgt. Eversmann (Harnett) recognizes that the young buck has never been in combat before. Some will call this an anti- war film, but that label is as simplistic as attempts to describe the Somalian calamity as a failed good will gesture on the part of the U.S. to alleviate starvation. Black Hawk Down reflects the realities of war honestly—showing very clearly that soldiers don't necessarily fight for political causes or due to bravery—it's a matter of surviving and fighting for the buddies next to you. I can't speak from experience, but I've heard this same theme from a number of Vietnam veterans, so Scott's film appears right on target.

Columbia studio executives once considered holding the release back after the September 11 tragedy—they weren't sure how Americans would cope with the film. It's difficult to sell Black Hawk Down as a "feel good" film about the U.S. military, but despite the overall debacle the film contains individual acts of heroism. Without those moments a hundred soldiers would have perished.

Scott's camera, Arthur Max's production design, and the special effects highlight the bloody war film. Through the labyrinth of Mogadishu's battle strewn markets and streets we follow the Delta Forces and younger Army Rangers as they first attempt to take out warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid in an "hour's assignment" before grimacing and flinching whenever another soldier gets hit. Foregoing the cartoonish MTV editing that plagued Gladiator, Scott slows down the action long enough to impact viscerally—images of severed hands, bottomless bodies, spurting aortas are interspersed with hundreds of natives suicidally running into machine gun fire and Bruckheimer's patented assortment of explosions and fires. Surreal are the editing cuts to General William F. Garrison (Sam Shepherd) overseeing the disaster on the video monitors after the U.S. forces lose the initiative and fight merely to survive.

Ridley Scott is the perfect director for this film. Traditionally short on developing characters, Scott inadvertently allows us to gain an affinity for the characters because the action takes precedence. The small touches—Josh Harnett showing his first halting attempts at leadership with his commitment to his men, Ewan McGregor getting just the right amount of coffee beans for the perfect cup of java for a friend, and Tom Sizemore going back into danger when not required—all add up by the end of the film, and cause some misty eyed patriotic sentiments to emerge in one of the more fabled recent military fumbles in U.S. history. What is more noble than heroically fighting on in a lost cause?

Black Hawk Down makes no overt political statements. We see the horror and wonder why the Hell we were involved in Somalia in the first place, but the film doesn't set out to condemn Clinton and U.S. policy—instead making this one of the most intimate war films ever captured on celluloid. Like one of the soldiers, we are plunked right into the middle of battle and it's all we can do is to find a way out of the maze to survive and breathe freely again. After a fast moving 144 minutes, we can emerge from the darkness, and find ourselves looking at war differently.