Black Hawk Down vs. Green Zone

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I can imagine some people would take me to task for the choice I'm about to make here. I think, though, it primarily comes down to the fact that Green Zone is fresher in my memory (I just watched it last night), and Black Hawk Down is in serious need of a re-watch from me.

Hmmm, in hindsight Black Hawk Down does feel a little too jingoistic for a film which is supposed to be portraying the horrors of war, and with both Iraq and Afghanistan very much in the history books compared to when BHD first came out it does seem a little outdated in its portrayal. That said, it is a very impressive achievement as war films go, especially for the time. Green Zone feels like the "Hurt Locker"-themed end-product of a marriaged between Black Hawk Down and Jason Bourne. It works well as a thriller, and starts off with an interesting political/drama spin, but towards the end gives way to cliched preaching (while I don't disapprove of the message it's trying to deliver, it isn't executed as well as I would expect from Paul Greengrass). While it's also meant to be much tighter and have less of a big-budget feel to it than Black Hawk Down, when you consider that it cost $100 million to make, it struggles to justify the price tag (no wonder it failed to recuperate). So Black Hawk Down wins for being the more impressive film as well as the more complete film, despite its outdated slant on Middle-Eastern conflicts, whereas Green Zone feels like it's struggling and failing to make its mark in a genre with plenty of better quality films for comparison, including BHD and THL.

Green Zone was solid...but Black Hawk Down smashes it.