Notes
WSR Narrative Review
Story Synopsis:
“Black Hawk Down” is the harrowing true story of a group of elite American soldiers sent into Somalia in 1993 as part of a U.N. peacekeeping incursion. Their mission is to abduct several top lieutenants of a Somalian warlord as part of a strategy to quell the civil war that is tearing the country to pieces. When the mission goes terribly wrong, the soldiers find themselves in the middle of the biggest U.S. military firefight since its involvement in Vietnam. The incident is a long, seemingly drawn-out depiction, but helps the viewer understand the horrible night that these soldiers were forced to endure. Based on the book by Mark Bowden. (Suzanne Hodges)
DVD Picture:
The anamorphically enhanced DVD picture, framed at 2.35:1, opens with an intentionally uninviting, deglamorized picture, which visually re-creates the horrible incident which occurred in Somalia. As the movie progresses, an intentionally harsh and highly contrasted picture creates a mood for the chaotic war-torn storytelling. Director Ridley Scott has described the look of the film as having an “uncompromising, almost-documentary style.” Colors are deeply saturated, with a hot, sultry appearance. Blacks are deep and undefined. The DVD nicely captures the stylized, Academy Award-nominated Slawomir Idziak cinematography, and exhibits only minor blemishes in the way of edge enhancement and pixelization. The perceivable film grain is an intentional result of the stylization and choice of film stock during shooting. (Suzanne Hodges)
Soundtrack:
This Academy Award®-winning soundtrack is downright excellent and fully engaging with its very prominent spatial attributes. The use of dimension is substantial throughout, yet seemingly is consistently tasteful and effective. The surrounds are used for effects panning and holosonic spread, in a manner that is particularly compelling, in that the frontal and surround soundstages seem to blend very well. Another notable attribute for the surrounds is that while they are indeed very active, they never really seem to sound overloaded or exaggerated. There's incredible instances of directionality throughout, namely the many shootouts throughout this movie, where you can hear the gunshots, bullet flybys, and bullet impacts all around with an uncanny, very convincing distinctiveness and visceral impact. If you have back surround decoding, you'll certainly want to have that engaged, as you will encounter several instances of behind-the-head imaging, such as the flyby of helicopters. The back surround channel also effectively serves to expand the soundstage around the listener. Sound effects have an incredible sense of realism and emotional delivery, having been well recorded and rendered with particularly commendable dynamic and spectral range. The dialogue is also another standout element of this soundtrack, with voices sounding particularly natural, well placed with the visual settings, and, above all, seeming to be intelligible, even during moments where clarity of the dialogue is very likely to be challenged in the midst of heavy effects and music activity. The lower end of the spectral range is excellent, sounding very clean with the music score and poignant with effects. The .1 LFE is engaged prominently, and sub-25 Hz activity can be noticed in all channels. Hans Zimmer's music, as is the rest of the soundtrack, is an excellent recording, with a welcome, engaging, holosonic spatial presence. This is absolutely one of the standout soundtrack productions, and is highly worthy of praise, not only for its liberal engagement of dimension, but also for the artistry in crafting the spatial soundstage. (Perry Sun)
This Disc Contains The Following WSR-Rated Superb Qualities:
Superb Sound Effects Recording Quality
Superb Music Score Recording Quality
Superb Special Visual Effects Quality
Superb Cinematography
Reference Quality
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