Black Hawk Down (2001)

·      Starring: Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana, William Fichtner, Ewen Bremner, Sam Shepard

·      Directed by: Ridley Scott

·      Studio: Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment

·      Video: 2.40:1 Anamorphic Widescreen

·      Audio: English DD 5.1, French DD 2.0 Surround

·      Subtitles: English, French, Chinese, Thai

·      Captions: English Closed Captions

·      Extras: Black Hawk Down: On The Set Featurette, Filmographies, Spider Man and The One Theatrical Trailers

·      Length: 144 minutes

·      Rating: ***1/2

From the high-powered team of Director Ridley Scott and Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Black Hawk Down is based on the true story of American soldiers involved in the conflict in Somalia.  An elite group of American Rangers and Delta Force soldiers are sent on a mission in civil war-ravaged Somalia in 1993.  These soldiers are to infiltrate a specific city building and capture high-ranking officers of the most powerful warlord in the country.  However, the mission quickly goes awry and the American men are left separated from each other and scattered throughout the city.  Greatly outnumbered by the warlord's militia, the soldiers must battle for their lives as they await rescue operations.      

The overall video quality of this DVD is excellent.  Images are crisp and clean with solid black levels.  Colors are accurate with fully saturated hues.  Picture defect mastering is perfect with no major flaws or digital compression artifacts.

The overall audio quality is excellent with the English Dolby Digital 5.1 track serving as the basis for this review.  It is readily apparent to see why this film won the 2001 Academy Award for Best Sound.  The soundtrack mix actively incorporates all of the discrete channels.  Dialogue is natural sounding but occasionally difficult to decipher amidst all of the action.  The surround channels are very aggressive, utilized for both music and sound effects, and include multiple split rear effects.  Tactile sound effects are present throughout the film in the form of subtle and moderate impacts.

Reference equipment used for this review: [DVD player- Pioneer Elite DV-37; HDTV Monitor- Pioneer SD532HD5; A/V Receiver- Pioneer Elite VSX33TX; Speakers- BIC America V636 5.1 Channel Configuration; Tactile Transducers- Clark Synthesis TST329F]