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(rocket-propelled grenades) and went crashing into enemy territory. Elite US Ranger and Delta regiments were then engaged in a 15-hour effort to rescue their own men. During the course of the mission, 18 US soldiers lost their lives. Black Hawk Down recalls the events of the disastrous mission and the men who were involved.
    The film was a major production, boasting big names and a big budget to match: it was produced by Hollywood big-shot Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Ridley Scott. An accomplished director held in high regard, Scott was clear on what he wanted the film’s focus to be – it was to cover the insertion of the troops into Mogadishu, their exit and what they felt afterwards. The narrative was kept simple: no back stories were given for the soldiers, nor did they talk about their personal lives. It was a film that dealt purely with the horror of the events that took place and the actions of the men who were involved.
    Just as authenticity had been paramount for Band of Brothers , so it was for Black Hawk Down . Just as the Band of Brothers actors had attended bootcamp, so the actors who were to play the soldiers in Black Hawk Down were required to attend ‘Ranger Orientation’ in order to experience the kind of training that real soldiers have to undertake. They also needed to understand the ethos of the Rangers: the respect they have for authority and the bond they have with their fellow soldiers. As Eric Bana’s character Hoot puts it in the film: ‘It’s about the men next to you. That’s it. That’s all it is.’
    The actors weren’t spared at all when they turned up forbootcamp: the first thing they had to endure was having their hair shaved off. Once they had been made to look like soldiers, they then underwent days of gruelling combat and movement training, as well as gun skills so that they gave the impression of being real soldiers on screen.
    Just as he had been when making Band of Brothers , Tom was acutely aware that he was representing a real soldier, Lance Twombly, and that he had a responsibility to that man when it came to portraying him in the movie. ‘Lance Twombly, who is still alive, he still lives with the demons. There are these people who have fought and will fight and will die. It’s a responsibility if you’re going to go in there and play a character like that, and the pressure is enormous.’
    A desire for realism fell not only to the actors but also to the director. He was all too aware that he was dealing with relatively recent events and that he couldn’t take liberties with accuracy. ‘When it’s so recent and vivid, you can’t diddle around with it, you can’t romanticise it,’ Scott expressed to the Guardian in 2002. His desire to adhere to the truth also manifested itself in his attention to detail. He was determined to use real Black Hawk helicopters in his film, as to have anything else would have compromised authenticity. Only the US government have Black Hawks and in order to gain permission to borrow their ‘birds’, protracted negotiations about how the military were represented in the film had to be undertaken with the Pentagon. It was only at the eleventh hour that Scott found out he had permission to use the helicopters (and in fact had to rearrange the shooting schedule to accommodate this delay).
    Ridley Scott is a director who always has a clear idea ofwhat he wants to achieve when he’s shooting and, according to one of Black Hawk Down ’s stars, Ewan McGregor, he shoots as he wants to edit the film. He wanted the combat and the reactions of the soldiers in the film to look as realistic as possible. This was partly achieved by the actors not being aware of when or where exactly there would be explosions and gunfire while filming was taking place. Therefore many of the reactions you see on screen are ones of genuine shock and surprise. And even with the explosions and gunfire and other background noise, they were all expected just to get on