US intervention in Somalia in the early 90s, soldiers trapped in a hostile area of town while attempting to capture Somali leaders, and everything goes wrong (Duh. If it had all gone according to plan, there would have been nothing to write about...)

So Mr. Otter and I were discussing what movie to watch that night...
Me: I'm not in a real good mood...how about something that's not too serious?
Mr. Otter: Well, if we don't watch Black Hawk Down, I'll have to return it to the library...
Me: It's not very cheerful...
Mr. Otter gives me THE LOOK. Nuf sed.

So here's a movie about US troops being sent into a foreign country to...no, wait, that's the news. This one is about our efforts to depose the evil leader of a country...no, that's the news too. It's really about us intervening in a civil war without UN support...ok, I give up. Things don't change much, do they?

Mr. Otter says that at the time, this incident was headline news and a national scandal...I completely missed it somehow, but I'm sure he was right. But I was still in no mood for a war story where everyone gets killed. And of course, like any good war story, you can just pick them out: the guy who says he won't wear his armor because his buddies won't shoot him in the back turns his back on the bad guys. The guy who calls home on a cell phone and his wife just misses the call. The guy who's transferring and the camera focuses on his age (18). Pretty obvious.

All the actors were good, and the Brits sounded pretty good for American boys. Nice to see that Orlando Bloom is really that gorgeous, even with an American accent and a really frightful haircut.

So. Well. It was good explodo, had a lot of context and soul-searching (why are we here?), looked accurate, but I really wasn't in a mood to appreciate it that evening...try it sometime when you really feel like a lot of shooting, and you'll like it.