I don't like Black Hawk Down very much because it is very one-sided and pro-american. The film neglects to mention all the military goofs the US army made during the weeks preceeding the invasion. If you read the book, watch the TV documentary or research it generally, you learn how the US military conducted clumsy attacks on suspected Aidid clan members, with poor intelligence and with long-range missiles etc. They killed many civillians, caused terror in the city with the low-flying black hawks and troops, and even accidentally killed UN peaceworkers and members of the Aidid clan who negotiating peace talks.

It was all these terrible botched operations that angered the Somali people, and made them hate the US presence so much and transformed Aidid into a hero, whereas before he had been the Somali's enemy and the US was actually welcome!

All these reasons were left out of the movie, and summarized instead by an insufficient caption in the brief history lesson at the beginning, which merely reads: "after six weeks washingotn was growing impatient". There is no other mention anywhere of the US cock-ups causing provocation among the Somalis.

Instead, the film goes out of its way to make the Somalis look aggressive and hostile by nature - which is deplorably wrong. While we get to see loads of American suffering, we never see a big Somali hospital sequence showing all the thousands of african wounded. And the only time when we actually get to hear a Somalian point of view, both african characters sum the situation up by saying "this is how it is in our world - it cannot be changed - accept it". Wrong.

This, in my opinion, is disgusting. The somalians are not like this by nature. Yes, they have a violent history, but so do many other countries even in the west! Every human being has a reason for feeling hatred, and the film completely ignored the reasons that the US gave the Somalians, denouncing an entire race to save face and to allow its target audience to feel pride in their military - rather than constructive criticism. This has encouarged the already unacceptable US culture of isolationism, meaning people who watch the movie, and don't explore the missing perspectives or look through the hollywoodwardian gloss, become even more ready to sit back and let people in foreign countries starve, die, suffer and become ruled by dictatorship. Iraq only happened because it conflicted with US interests. There are dozens of dictatorships and disasters in the world which are even worse yet the US never so much as lifts a finger to help. Nonetheless, I pray and hope that order will be restored in Iraq, despite my cynical views on Bush and Blair's motives.

However, the situation looks dangerously similar to the Somalia situation. The US are becoming very unpopular. They have placed guarding oil fields as a higher priority over the mass looting and violence, and have even shot at Iraqi protestors. Whether they were provoked or not I don't know, but either way, these recent events have become a recipe for trouble and hostility from the Iraqi people. It is ignorant to use the argument "why go over to help people who don't want our intervention" when the true case is that poorly conducted operations by the US are often the cause of this hatred.

If you want to read an article by Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down author) visit my website via the link at the bottom of this post and go to "misc". He discusses this subject very deeply, analytically, but most importantly, impartially.

Back to Zimmer, I actually think he made a great score, which was very atmosphereic and portrayed the horror of combat and the tribal clash well. However, I thought the film-makers exploited his efforts. Instead of making good use of gritty, effective music like "Synchrotone" and some of the more obscure music on the CD - which would have been very impartial and raw - they mixed the electric guiatar element of his score very differently in the film: it became much louder and more prominant and more reoccuring. It often drowned out the african elements, and the later tracks (not included on the album, but curiously on the double DVD isntead) were re-mixed from gritty portayals of warfare, to patriotic gung-ho themes to accompany a seemingly victorius and proud UN/US convoy. This spoils Zimmer's original intention, which he states in the DVD interview, to have both the tribe's instumrents having "equal expression" and this correlates with the movie!

The poor mixing of music in the movie and the chances missed out by not doing more with Barra Barra (which I thought was good enough to be used as a central theme) add to my feeling of disappointment of this movie. I find reading the book listening to the CD release far more intense and artistic and humane. I only hope Zimmer will recycle the rest of synchrotone and some of the brilliant (and far more appropriate) unused tracks from the CD in another, more intelligent movie. He deserves better.