BLACK HAWK DOWN (FILM)

'''Black Hawk Down''' is a 2001 film by Ridley Scott, based on the book ''Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War'' by Mark Bowden. It depicts the Battle of Mogadishu, which was part of the U.S. military's 1993 campaign to capture Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The movie stars an ensemble cast. It won awards for Film Editing and Sound at the 74th Academy Awards in 2002.

Contents

Plot

Background and production

Cast

Awards

Other production information

References

External links

Plot

A mixed assault force of Delta operators, Army Rangers, and Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) under the command of Maj. Gen. William Garrison was dropped by helicopters of the US Army's Special Operations Air Regiment (SOAR) deep into the capital city of Mogadishu to capture two senior lieutenants of Somali warlord Aidid, Omar Salad and Abdi Hasan Awale. The raid by the Delta operators was successful and the wanted persons were captured and taken into American custody. However, when Somali militia armed with RPGs downed two Black Hawk helicopters, a 30 minute mission became a pitched battle between the American forces and Somali militia lasting almost 15 hours.

The movie recounts the efforts by the American soldiers to get to the crash sites and recover their wounded personnel. Most of the action centers on a few soldiers, such as Staff Sergeant Eversmann who led Ranger Chalk Four. Other parts of the movie focus on Lt. Col. McKnight and his rescue convoy that gets ambushed throughout the hostile city. The story also chronicles the efforts of Cpt. Steele, who was in command of the four Ranger 'chalks' , the character of SFC Sanderson (a Delta operator based on Paul Howe), the Delta squad leader SFC Norm Hoot , and the sole survivor of the second crash Chief Warrant Officer Mike Durant, as well as the defense made by Delta operators Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart to protect Durant's crash site. The comrades of Durant that flew above him also tried to save Durant. Shughart and Gordon were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions at the crash site.
The soldiers were able to hold off the militia at the first crash site until dawn when a convoy consisting of the 10th Mountain Division, Pakistani and Malaysian UN troops reached them and they were able to successfully exit the hostile area of the city to a Pakistani-occupied soccer stadium. During the battle, 18 American soldiers were killed, although another was killed two days later by a mortar (Matt Rierson) bringing the toll to 19:

CW3 Donovan Briley SSG Daniel Busch CPL James Cavacco SSG William Cleveland SSG Thomas Field SFC Earl Fillmore CW4 Raymond Frank MSG Gary Gordon SGT Cornell Houston SGT Casey Joyce

SPC Richard 'Alphabet' Kowalewski PFC James Martin MSG Timothy Martin SGT Dominick Pilla SFC Mathew Rierson SGT Lorenzo Ruiz SFC Randy Shughart CPL James 'Jamie' Smith CW4 Clifton 'Elvis' Wolcott

It is estimated that over a thousand Somali militia and civilians lost their lives. Mohamed Farrah Aidid was killed on August 2, 1996 during a battle with the rival militia . Major General William F. Garrison retired the following day.

Background and production

This project was originally the idea of director Simon West who urged producer Jerry Bruckheimer to obtain the rights of the book with a view to directing it himself. However, West abandoned the project to direct '' (2001).
Despite the fact that Ken Nolan is the only credited writer, there were others that contributed uncredited. Sam Shepard wrote most of his own dialogue as Major General William F. Garrison; Eric Roth wrote crucial speeches for Josh Hartnett and Eric Bana to deliver in the closing minutes; Steven Zaillian made a dialogue-driven rewrite; and Stephen Gaghan contributed to the writing of the screenplay. Author Mark Bowden wrote early drafts of the screenplay, before Jerry Bruckheimer turned it over. The scene between Mike Durant and Firimbi is a portion from one of Bowden's early drafts.
About forty of the actors who were portraying Rangers were sent to Fort Benning to attend a two week crash course in becoming Rangers, three of the actors portraying Delta Operators were sent to Fort Bragg and were given a two week Commando Course by members of the 1st Special Warfare Training Group. Ron Eldard and the several of the actors who portrayed the pilots of the 160th SOAR went to Fort Campbell and were given a lecture by Michael Durant (whom Ron Eldard portrays in the movie) and by several Little Bird and Black Hawk pilots.
The directors enlisted the help of the US Army, and all Black Hawks and Little Birds used during the filming were from the 160th SOAR, (Special Operations Aviation Regiment) and most of the pilots (such as Keith Jones who delivers a small amount of dialogue during the movie) were involved in the actual battle on 3-4 October 1993. The US Army also supplied the ground vehicles and weapons. Additionally, a platoon of Rangers from Bravo Company, 3/75 Ranger Regiment (the same company that was involved in the events of the movie) were employed to do the fast-roping scenes and act as extras.
Much of the film was shot in the twin cities Rabat and Salé, Morocco because the film-makers had decided that filming in Somalia would have been too dangerous. In addition the film characters were not of Somali descent. Scenes taking place at the Task Force Ranger base were filmed at Kénitra Airbase.

Cast

★ Josh Hartnett - Staff Sergeant Matt Eversmann, U.S. Army Ranger

★ Eric Bana - Sergeant First Class Norm 'Hoot' Hooten , Delta Force operator

★ Ewan McGregor - Specialist John Grimes (based on SPC. John Stebbins), U.S. Army Ranger

★ Tom Sizemore - Lieutenant Colonel Danny McKnight, commander of the 3rd Ranger Battalion

★ William Fichtner - Sergeant First Class Jeff Sanderson (based on SFC. Paul Howe), Delta Force operator

★ Ewen Bremner - Specialist Shawn Nelson, U.S. Army Ranger

★ Sam Shepard - Major General William F. Garrison, Task Force Ranger commander

★ Kim Coates - Tim Griz , Delta Force operator

★ Hugh Dancy - Sergeant First Class Kurt Schmid, Delta Force medic (portrayed as a Ranger in the film)

★ Ron Eldard - Chief Warrant Officer Michael Durant, 160th SOAR pilot

★ Ioan Gruffudd - Lieutenant John Beales, U.S. Army Ranger

★ Tom Guiry - Staff Sergeant Ed Yurek, U.S. Army Ranger

★ Charlie Hofheimer - Corporal James 'Jamie' Smith, U.S. Army Ranger

★ Danny Hoch - Sergeant Dominick Pilla, U.S. Army Ranger

★ Jason Isaacs - Captain Mike Steele, commander of Company B, 3rd Ranger Battalion

★ Zeljko Ivanek- Lieutenant Colonel Gary Harrell, Delta Force component commander

★ Glenn Morshower - Lieutenant Colonel Tom Matthews, commander of the 1st Battalion, 160th SOAR

★ Jeremy Piven - Chief Warrant Officer Clifton 'Elvis' Wolcott, 160th SOAR pilot

★ Brendan Sexton III - Specialist Richard 'Alphabet' Kowalewski, U.S. Army Ranger

★ Johnny Strong - Sergeant First Class Randy Shughart, Delta Force sniper (posthumous Medal of Honor Recipient)

★ Nikolaj Coster Waldau - Master Sergeant Gary Gordon, Delta Force sniper (posthumous Medal of Honor Recipient)

★ Richard Tyson - Staff Sergeant Daniel Busch, Delta Force operator (posthumous Silver Star Recipient)

★ Brian Van Holt - Staff Sergeant Jeff Struecker, U.S. Army Ranger

★ Steven Ford - Lieutenant Colonel Joe Cribbs

★ Tom Hardy - Specialist Lance Twombly, U.S. Army Ranger

★ Carmine Giovinazzo - Sergeant Mike Goodale, U.S. Army Ranger

★ Chris Beetem - Sergeant James 'Casey' Joyce, U.S. Army Ranger

★ Matthew Marsden - Specialist Dale Sizemore, U.S. Army Ranger

★ Orlando Bloom - Private First Class Todd Blackburn, U.S. Army Ranger

★ Enrique Murciano - Sergeant Lorenzo Ruiz, U.S. Army Ranger

★ George Harris - Osman Ali Atto, lieutenant of general Aidid

Awards

The film won the following awards:

★ the 2002 Academy Award for Best Editing (Pietro Scalia)

★ the 2002 Academy Award for Best Sound (Michael Minkler, Myron Nettinga, Chris Munro)

★ the 2002 Golden Reel Award from the Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA for Best Sound Editing - Effects and Foley, Domestic Feature Film

★ the 2002 Harry Award
It was also nominated for the following awards:

★ the 2002 Academy Award for Best Director (Ridley Scott)

★ the 2002 Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Slawomir Idziak)

★ the 2002 AFI Film Award for AFI Cinematographer of the Year (Slawomir Idziak)

★ the 2002 AFI Film Award for AFI Director of the Year (Ridley Scott)

★ the 2002 AFI Film Award for AFI Editor of the Year (Pietro Scalia)

★ the 2002 AFI Film Award for AFI Movie of the Year (Jerry Bruckheimer, Ridley Scott)

★ the 2002 AFI Film Award for AFI Production Designer of the Year (Arthur Max)

★ the 2002 MTV Movie Award for MTV Movie Award Best Action Sequence (First helicopter crash)

★ the 2002 MTV Movie Award for MTV Movie Award Best Movie

★ the 2002 WGA Award (Screen) for Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published (Ken Nolan)

★ the 2002 Teen Choice Award for Film - Choice Actor, Drama/Action Adventure (Rowan Mortensen)

★ the 2002 Teen Choice Award for Film - Choice Movie, Drama/Action Adventure

★ the 2002 Golden Reel Award from the Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA for Best Sound Editing - Dialogue and A.D.R., Domestic Feature Film

★ the 2002 Golden Trailer for Best Drama

★ the 2002 DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (Ridley Scott)

Other production information

★ The photo of a wife and child that Durant is looking at is actually a photo of Eric Bana's wife and child. The props department forgot to take a photo of a wife and child with them, so they asked Bana's wife and child who were traveling with him if they could use a photo of them in the movie.

★ The wife of Randy Shughart is played by Ridley Scott's girlfriend Giannina Facio who also appeared in ''Gladiator'' as Maximus' wife.

★ Disney passed on distributing this film because of its violent R rating. Its eventual distributor, Revolution Studios, is run by ex-Disney studios chairman Joe Roth.

★ Josh Hartnett, Tom Sizemore, Ewan Bremner, William Fichtner and Kim Coates all previously worked together in another war film: ''Pearl Harbor'' (2001).

★ Some of the scenes on the monitors behind Major General Garrison are actual images that were taken from the Orion reconnaissance aircraft that was orbiting over Mogadishu during the battle.

★ Eric Bana's character, Sergeant First Class Hoot, wears Oakley Juliet sunglasses in the film. This is anachronistic, as the Juliet was released in 1999.

★ Several Rangers are depicted using Emerson Production knives in the hangar scene, Emerson did not begin making production knives until 1998.

★ The Ranger who runs after SSG Strueker's HMMWV to join the rescue convoy is a real Ranger, named John Bamford. He was hastily given membership in the Screen Actor's Guild for him to perform the role.

★ On the last day of their week-long Army Ranger orientation at Fort Benning, the actors who portrayed the Rangers received a letter that had been anonymously slipped under their door. The letter thanked them for all their hard work, asked them to "tell our story true" and was signed with the names of the Rangers who died in the Mogadishu firefight.

★ One of the Black Hawk helicopters used in the film was named the ''Armageddon'' (also the title of a film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer) and another was named the ''Gladiator'' (also the title of a film directed by Ridley Scott). Producer Jerry Bruckheimer believed this to be a sign of good luck.

★ The scene where the helicopter follows the informant's car was an error as the helicopter on the screen in front of General Garrison is a Huey, but when the image cuts away, the chopper from the screen becomes a Black Hawk.

★ The scene where a U.S. soldier falls out of the truck in the convoy was an outtake, but director Ridley Scott felt that it was funny and should be left in the movie.

★ The scene in which Captain Steele and Sergeant Sanderson argue about "Hoot's" behavior at the cafeteria is biased towards Captain Steele's behalf. In the book, Captain Mike Steele had a problem with the Delta Force's behavior, feeling that they were a bad influence to his Army Rangers, as many of his young soldiers had begun to question his "robot-Ranger" protocols which Delta Force and later they viewed as procedures for procedure's sake. The incident did in fact occur in the mess-hall in which a Delta Operator, Norm Hooten, had walked into the mess-hall with his safety off. When Steele approached him, the operator pointed at his finger and said, "''This'' is my safety." The real-life version of Sanderson, Paul Howe, on the other hand felt that the Ranger's strict training regimen was doing more harm than good when it came to actual combat situations.

★ The scene where Staff Sergeant Eversmann runs unprotected across a street under heavy fire to plant a targeting strobe did happen in the actual battle although it wasn't Eversman who did the act; SPC Twombley was ordered to plant a flat triangular marker (similar to a construction marker) out in the middle of the street so that pilots could identify their position. In another incident, Technical Sergeant Tim Wilkinson, an Air Force Pararescueman (PJ), repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to collect medical supplies and to treat a wounded Ranger named Carlos Rodriguez holed up near the first crash site. For his bravery, he was awarded the Air Force Cross, a medal second only to the Medal of Honor. Many of his fellow PJ buddies joked that he had run too slowly and thrown off all the Somalian's aim.

★ The film takes creative license on Staff Sergeant Eversmann's role in the battle. In the film, Eversmann became a compilation character based on his own experiences, and U.S. Army Rangers Tom Ditomasso and Larry Perino. In the movie, he is shown as a key member of the movement to the crash site, who essentially substituted for DiTomasso and Perino. In the actual operation given in truth and in the novel, Eversmann was actually a member of the lost convoy and returned to base with the prisoners. The only actual event depicted accurately on Eversmann's experiences in both sources was Blackburn's injury.

★ Like Eversmann, Sergeant Lorenzo Ruiz, played by Enrique Murciano, is shown as a key member of Steele's team. In actuality, Ruiz was also with the lost convoy, but he did suffer a severe wound to his abdomen and died on a transport on the way to Germany.

★ In the scene where Sgt. Busch crawls out of the first Black Hawk wreck and starts shooting at the Somalians taking potshots at him, the goggles on his Pro-Tech helmet disappear and reappear several times when the camera cuts to a different view.

★ In the scene where the 3 HMMWVs drive back to base with Private Blackburn, after Sergeant Pilla gets shot, Delta Sergeant Norm 'Hoot' Hooten takes over the .50 Browning Heavy Machine Gun (HMG). However, in the scenes where the camera shows Hoot from a 1st person view perspective, he has no gloves on. But when the camera shows him from a 3rd person perspective, you can clearly see he has on black coloured gloves which most, if not all of the Delta operatives were wearing , the only explanation for this that the 1st person view was for another Ranger gunner on the second or third HMMWV.

★ In the scene when Randy reached in and pulled Durant, he actually put him leaning against a tree behind Super 6-4, not in a building as shown in the film.

★ In the scene where the Super 6-4 crash site is overrun, Durant was actually hit in the face with a severed arm of one of the killed crewmembers instead of the rifle as is depicted in the movie. Durant did not admit this fact until he included it in his 2004 book ''In the Company of Heroes''.

★ SFC Kurt Schmid played by Hugh Dancy was actually a Delta Force medic, not a U.S. Army Ranger medic. Although he started off as a Ranger, he became a Special Forces medic and served in the Delta Force during which time he was in Mogadishu. Kurt went on to become a Special Forces Warrant Officer and has since retired. Years later, with the publishing of Bowden's book, Schmid took leave from his post in Japan to talk with the father of Jamie Smith, the Ranger he had fought so desperately to save.

★ During the scene between Grimes (Ewan McGregor) and Sizemore (Matthew Marsden), Grimes asks Sizemore how he broke his arm. Sizemore says he broke his arm in a ping-pong accident. In reality, Sizemore broke his arm while in a scuffle with Lieutenant Colonel Harrell in the hangar (although saying that he broke it in ping-pong could be taken as a joke on his part).

★ In the last scene, SFC Sanderson was seen using a Colt M1911 after he ran out of ammo, but later is seen holding a Beretta M9. (This does not appear in the Revolution Studios demonstration Copy)

★ In the scene where the crash site was being overrun, crew chief Bill Cleveland was completely stripped of everything he had. This scene was not shown in the movie.

★ After Master Sgt Gordon is killed, SFC Shugart takes Gordon's Colt Commando carbine to give to Michael Durant. However, shortly before Shugart approaches him, Durant already has the carbine lying across his lap.

★ The film brought an unusual pairing from season one of ''24''. The man enlisted to defend Senator David Palmer from assassination was Secret Service Agent Aaron Pierce, and the would be assassin was European crime lord Andre Drazen. The actors of these characters, Glenn Morshower (Pierce) and Zeljko Ivanek (Drazen), appeared alongside each other in a US chopper, both as American soldiers.

★ Mark Bowden's cousin, David Keane, produced and directed a documentary for The History Channel titled, ''The True Story of Black Hawk Down''. The documentary was released in 2002 and is included in some of the actual movie's DVD releases.

★ In the scene where Blackburn fell from the Blackhawk, he actually fell on top of a car.

★ In the scene where Nelson, Twombley and Yurek finally find Eversmann's squad at the crash site we can see bullets hitting the ground while Yurek is running towards shelter, however we can't hear any gunfire as the Somalians are either praying, or resting at that time. They start shooting when the last of the soldiers (Twombley) makes his way towards the strong point.

★ Specialist Grimes was based on Specialist John Stebbins. The change in names made at the request of the Pentagon because he was convicted by court martial in 1999 for sexually assaulting his six-year old daughter.^[1]

★ The scene where a severed hand appears was out of sequence because it belonged to SPC Richard Kowalewski and was severed later when a RPG went into the cab of the truck he was driving severing his hand, lodging in his torso and did not explode. Kowalewski later was covered by sandbags out side the base hospital because of the unexploded RPG and died of his injuries

★ The song playing when the soldiers are preparing for the mission is Falling to Pieces by Faith No More.

★ The song playing during the scene between Grimes and Sizemore is Creep by Stone Temple Pilots

References

★ Scott, Ridley (2001). Black Hawk Down. ''Sony Pictures Entertainment''. Culver City, California (USA).
1. http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/linkscopy/BlkHawkDown.html

External links

★

★ http://www.socnetcentral.com/vb

★ The Philadelphia Inquirer

★ ''Warlord thumbs down for Somalia film'', BBC News 29 January 2002

★ Medal of Honor Recipients on Film