History Film / BlackHawkDown

* InterserviceRivalry: Between the Rangers and the Deltas. Steele outright accuses the Deltas of being undisciplined cowboys while Delta regards the Rangers as subpar soldiers hamstrung by conventional Army thinking.

** Captain Steele tends to be a bit of a {{Jerkass}}, giving condescending lectures to Delta Operators who he considers MildlyMilitary. At the same time, it's obvious that he acts out of concern for his men's well being, and he tends to come off as AFatherToHisMen[[note]]The book makes it clear that Delta's methods do not work with the more traditional infantry role that the Rangers fulfill. He was trying to discourage his Rangers from doing the same sorts of things that Delta Operators did, because while Delta was extremely effective in their missions and seriously elite, the Rangers had a different mission to perform[[/note]].

* DisasterDomino: The convoy is being guided to the crash site by a surveillance plane overhead. However it does not speak directly to the convoy commander but to the headquarters then to the communications helicopter and then to Colonel McKnight. This causes a delay which means by the time they get the order to turn they have either missed the correct road or worse, turn down the wrong street entirely. Had the convoy been guided purely by the surveillance plane it could have secured the first crash site in time, freeing up other forces to head towards Durant's downed aircraft.

* WeaponOfChoice: An [=M14=] battle rifle for Randy Shughart.

* {{Anvilicious}}: General Garrison trying to clean up a pool of blood only to realize he made it worse. A clear metaphor to the fact that the US military's actions only managed to escalate an already violent situation, killing a whole bunch of people in the process.

* {{Anvilicious}}: After the offensive, General Garrison notices a pool of blood in the ground, tries to clean it up and makes it worse. A clear metaphor of how the US Military's actions just managed to escalate a bad situation, killing a whole bunch of people in the process.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: For a two-and-a-half hour long movie.

* BaldOfAwesome: Captain Steele... the movie version, anyway. Opinions vary as to his real-life counterpart (in the book, Delta SFC Paul Howe had a poor view of the Rangers, but especially of CPT Steele).

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Limited ammunition is stated and shown multiple times as being a major concern for the trapped soldiers. As is the fact that the entire operation was supposed to be over in about an hour and the soldiers did not ride out fully equipped for what is to become an entire day's worth of fighting.
** One of the helicopters unleashes a hail of minigun fire to ward off some Somalis on a rooftop. Unfortunately Eversmann is crouching directly underneath the helicopter and receives superficial burns from the spent shell casings; it takes fire to shoot a gun.
** Gordon and Shughart are elite Delta Force snipers, career soldiers who are the absolute best of the best. But they're still two guys who, alongside the wounded and immobile Durant, are fighting an armed mob with hundreds of people in it. It's clear that they don't last particularly long defending the crash site, and even before the two of them are gunned down, they're almost completely out of ammo. All they had was their service rifles and sidearms, plus whatever could be salvaged from the crash site itself. The real Mike Durant said in a lecture he gave that the mob overran them in about fifteen minutes.

* ArtisticLicenseGunSafety: Discussed early in the film when Steele chides Hoot for carrying his carbine with the safety off, only for Hoot to respond that his trigger finger is the safety.

'''Hassan''': Then perhaps... you and ''I'' can negotiate, eh? [[NotSoDifferent Soldier to soldier.]] ''[[PunchClockVillain (offers Durant water)]]''\\

* WarIsHell

** Narrowly averted when Nelson mistakes Yurek for a Somalian militiaman and nearly shoots him.

** One of the Somali militiamen accidentally shoots his comrade with an RPG while trying to shoot Strucker’s Humvees.

** When Nelson, Twombly, and Yurek leave the vicinity of the target building to go to the Super Six One crash site, they apparently don’t hear Gallentine trying to raise them on coms.

* NotSoDifferent: Aidid's propaganda minister tells Mike Durant this about Americans and Somalis. According to him, despite the differences of the political systems of the United States and Somalia, they're both militaristic nations who use violence to solve their problems, and they'll always use it, no matter how much they both want peace.

* FamousLastWords:
** [[spoiler:"Randy,]] last mag!" [[spoiler:Gary Gordon]]
** [[spoiler:"Gordy’s]] gone, man. I’ll be outside. Good luck." [[spoiler:Randy Shughart]]
** "Te-tell my girls...I'll be okay..." [[spoiler:Tim "Griz" Martin]]

* RealityEnsues:
** Limited ammunition is stated and shown multiple times as being a major concern for the trapped soldiers. As is the fact that the entire operation was supposed to be over in about an hour and the soldiers did not ride out fully equipped for what is to become an entire day's worth of fighting.
** One of the helicopters unleashes a hail of minigun fire to ward off some Somalis on a rooftop. Unfortunately Eversmann is crouching directly underneath the helicopter and receives superficial burns from the spent shell casings; it takes fire to shoot a gun.
** Gordon and Shughart are elite Delta Force snipers, career soldiers who are the absolute best of the best. But they're still two guys who, alongside the wounded and immobile Durant, are fighting an armed mob with hundreds of people in it. It's clear that they don't last particularly long defending the crash site, and even before the two of them are gunned down, they're almost completely out of ammo. All they had was their service rifles and sidearms, plus whatever could be salvaged from the crash site itself. The real Mike Durant said in a lecture he gave that the mob overran them in about fifteen minutes.

* ConservationOfNinjutsu: Justified because they're a Delta squad. Later subverted when the two Delta marksmen are finally overrun. Overall demonstrated with the casualty count of the battle in RealLife: The Americans took relatively light casualties compared to the Somali militias, largely because they had better training and air support. By the end of the fighting, the UN forces had lost 21 men (19 Americans, one Malaysian, one Pakistani), while the Somalis suffered somewhere in the range of 200-500 militia and civilians killed.

* EyeScream: Maddox, one of the Humvee drivers, gets an faceful of glass when a Somalia shoots an RPG that shatters the windshield of his Humvee. Granted, his vision isn't completely destroyed.

* DeskJockey: As the above shows, Grimes.

* EliteArmy: 18 Americans died. Contrast that with the 1000-2000 [[{{Mooks}} Somalis]] killed.
* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: The bulk of the American units shown in the film; [[{{Ranger}} 75th Rangers]], 160th Special Operations Air Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, Air Force Pararescue, and Deltas.

* MeaningfulEcho: During the battle, Grimes manages to make some coffee and gives it to Sgt. Sanderson. After the battle, Sanderson tries to return the favor but can only find tea.

* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: The movie's CatchPhrase: "Leave No Man Behind", and accurately depicted as the RealLife policy of the Special Forces.
** Played With in the book, however. The book records several soldiers wondering about the wisdom of this policy as the efforts to free a dead pilot threatened to delay departure past sunrise, when the shooting would kick back in to high gear.

* ObstructiveBureaucrat: General Garrison wanted [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier light armor]] and [[CoolPlane gunship support]][[note]]notably an AC-130[[/note]] for his men, but the request was denied so they were stuck with Humvees, Black Hawks and Little Birds.

* LastStand: Gordan and Shughart fight to the death to the defend the crash site of the second downed Blackhawk, going all the way down to their final few pistol rounds before they are overwhelmed.

* BulletProofVest: Played straight. Armored plating only works if you wear it. In one tragic case recounted in the book, this would prove to be the death of one Ranger who had been trying to emulate a Delta's method of taking cover without understanding the ''why'' of the method - causing the Ranger to expose his unprotected back.

* DramaticGunCock: A Delta operator racks the charging handle on the [[{{BFG}} Ma Deuce]] after he takes the place of the Ranger who was just killed. A JustifiedTrope; US Soldiers are trained to cycle the weapon once when replacing a dead or wounded gunner to ensure the weapon is still functional and in a ready-to-fire state, making it one of those rare and wonderful moments that are both cool/dramatic ''and'' TruthInTelevision.

* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: Delta operator Wex, who loses the lower half of his body to an RPG.

* ItsCuban: While being interrogated by Army Intelligence to learn where insurrectionist warlord Muhammad Adid is hiding, Osman Ali Atto calmly smokes a cigar which he mentions is a genuine Cuban, given to him by Castro's emissaries for keeping the renegade factions supplied with weapons.

* RunningGag: Grimes keeps getting shot with [=RPGs=]. Okay, so it's not a ''funny'' running gag. (In the actual campaign, Stebbins really did find himself near far too many explosions. Each time, his squadmates thought he was done, but each time he managed to survive somehow. He eventually makes it out of the combat zone with a badly injured foot.)

* RefugeInAudacity: In the book, one USAF Pararescueman runs across a street to pick up [=IV=]s and medical supplies. Not once, not twice, but ''three times''. While the Rangers and Somalis are trading fire. He doesn't get hit at all.

* SenselessSacrifice: Zig-zagged. The sacrifice the two Delta operators that go to help Durant somewhat becomes this, as Durant ends up getting captured by the Somali militia anyway. On the other hand, he did survive to see another day, which may not have happened if he was left wedged inside the helo wreckage firing an [=MP5=].

* ViewersAreGeniuses: One of the Delta operators tells Grimes to "stay off the walls" with no explanation. If you are leaning against a wall in a firefight, two things might happen: bullets striking the wall at a shallow angle might end up traveling along the wall and hit you, or an explosion will go off nearby and the wall will shake hard enough from the recoil to violently smash into you.