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Video: A harrowing, timely depiction of warfare
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 13, 2002
Black Hawk Down (R)
[Photo: Revolution Studios]
Soldiers evacuate an injured comrade as they dodge bullets during a scene from Black Hawk Down, directed by Ridley Scott. |
Director Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down is based on the true story of a 1993 U.S. peacekeeping mission and rescue in Somalia resulting in numerous casualties. Scott was Oscar-nominated for his direction, which almost makes the film seem like a documentary. Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbor) and Ewan McGregor (Moulin Rouge) co-star as young soldiers getting their first, bitter taste of battle.
First impressions: "Black Hawk Down is without a doubt the most harrowing depiction of warfare ever fashioned by Hollywood. Consider the first and final 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, skip that movie's foxhole cliches and noble poses, and you have an idea of what Scott accomplishes with breakneck pacing over nearly two hours.
(The film) brilliantly captures the situation's confused violence with painstaking authenticity, filled with tactical maneuvers described by walkie-talkie speak that viewers must decipher like a foreign language. We're constantly challenged to keep up with the trained minds working, and with Pietro Scalia's frenzied editing."
Second thoughts: One of the 10 best films of 2001, and one of the timeliest.
Rental audience: War movie buffs, CNN junkies.
Rent it if you enjoy: Saving Private Ryan, The Big Red One.
Kate and Leopold (PG-13)
[Photo: Miramax Films]
Hugh Jackman is Leopold and Meg Ryan is Kate in the story of a 19th century duke who time travels to present day New York City.
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Meg Ryan plays a market researcher looking for a new face to advertise butter. One arrives across the centuries, a debonair 19th-century duke (Hugh Jackman) traveling through some kind of time tunnel. Bet you can't wait to see how he reacts to 21st-century living. Or maybe you can.
First impressions: "A derivative piece of fluff that feels as if it might have been constructed by committee." (Phillip Booth, Times correspondent)
Second thoughts: Isn't Meg Ryan's second adolescence getting dull?
Rental audience: People for whom it isn't.
Rent it if you enjoy: Any of the other dozens of movies made about time travel.
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