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Black Hawk Down: The Shooting Script
New in the acclaimed seriesbased on the bestselling book by Mark Bowden, the new movie from acclaimed director Ridley Scott (Gladiator), and renowned producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pearl Harbor) starring Josh Hartnett, coming from Revolution Studios and distributed by Columbia Pictures in January 2002. Based on actual events, Black Hawk Down is the heroic account of a group of elite US soldiers sent into Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993 as part of a UN peacekeeping operation to quell the civil war and famine ravaging the country. Young Rangers and veteran Delta Force soldiers fight side by side against overwhelming odds. For eighteen harrowing hours, outnumbered and surrounded, tensions flare, friends are lost, alliances are formed and soldiers learn the true nature of war and heroism. The cast also includes: Eric Bana, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, William Fichiner, and Sam Shepard. 20 b/w photos. credits.
Author Biography: Ken Nolan's first produced screenplay is Black Hawk Down. Steve Zaillian's previous screenplays include Schindler's List and Awakenings.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 7, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 20, 2019
It was interesting to read this book after reading conversations from other filmmakers on how they go about writing screenplays. The movie Black Hawk Down has been one of my personal favorites, even with its flaws, unfortunately, I didn’t feel like this book elaborated much on the movie or Mark Bowden’s original novel.
Ken Nolan’s writing style isn’t very engaging to read. He is very good at quick, jumpy action scenes, probably because he doesn’t have to go into as much detail. But he (and pretty much everyone involved on the project) says in his forward that he wanted to humanize both sides of the conflict. He doesn’t seem to accomplish this in his shooting script. We are introduced to specific American soldiers with a one sentence description at most. While I understand that screenplays must be brief for easily distracted readers to read, even a description of how these men were dressed, or any other defining features would not have taken more than a sentence or two, and would’ve helped these men stand out more. And don’t even get me started on the complete lack of characterization given to any of the Somalian civilians. It bothered me in the film and it bothered me in this script too.
There is no doubt in my mind that this was a story that deserved to be told. The American soldiers who gave their lives in the conflict acted with such courage and gallantry, they deserved to be immortalized in celluloid. But I’d recommend watching the film instead of reading the shooting script.
Ken Nolan’s writing style isn’t very engaging to read. He is very good at quick, jumpy action scenes, probably because he doesn’t have to go into as much detail. But he (and pretty much everyone involved on the project) says in his forward that he wanted to humanize both sides of the conflict. He doesn’t seem to accomplish this in his shooting script. We are introduced to specific American soldiers with a one sentence description at most. While I understand that screenplays must be brief for easily distracted readers to read, even a description of how these men were dressed, or any other defining features would not have taken more than a sentence or two, and would’ve helped these men stand out more. And don’t even get me started on the complete lack of characterization given to any of the Somalian civilians. It bothered me in the film and it bothered me in this script too.
There is no doubt in my mind that this was a story that deserved to be told. The American soldiers who gave their lives in the conflict acted with such courage and gallantry, they deserved to be immortalized in celluloid. But I’d recommend watching the film instead of reading the shooting script.
December 15, 2008
One of the few "movie" books I've actually read or even purchased. It was nice to see the transition from Bowden's book to Ken Nolan's script and movie.
April 27, 2020
Lop off the first 20 minutes, and work in the (few) necessary bits of exposition on the expedition. That gives you the line “Black hawk down, we’ve got a black hawk down” right at the 30:00 mark. As it should be. It’s the key incident, Plot Point 1, and the name of the damn film: we shouldn’t have to wait till 52 minutes in to hear it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews