`HAWK' A SCARY LOOK AT WAR.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

The best war film since ``Saving Private Ryan,'' ``Black Hawk Down'' is also a new kind of military movie for a new century of combat.

Adapted from Mark Bowden's blow-by-blow account of the bloody, 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, when U.S. soldiers were trapped in the chaotic Somalia capital for 18 hours after what was supposed to be a surgical extraction of a local warlord's lieutenants, the new film captures the cacophony of modern urban warfare the way the 1965 ``Battle of Algiers'' placed us in the middle of an earlier, pre-high-tech era of such conflict.

But the new film operates on a, well, operational standard as free of melodrama, sentimentality, politics and even character as a fiction film can conceivably get. Something of a career achievement for director Ridley Scott (``Alien,'' ``Blade Runner,'' ``Gladiator,'' ``Hannibal''), this wall-to-wall war chronicle obviously plays to the director's acclaimed pictorial expertise. But it also makes a virtue out of his usual weakness, an almost mechanistic disinterest in the human side of storytelling, ``Thelma & Louise'' being the notable exception.

In ``Black Hawk,'' squads of relatively interchangeable Army Rangers and slightly more individuated Delta Force operatives, made even harder to distinguish by their uniforms, sidewall haircuts and the camouflage gear that covers even that, must react solely to the needs of the moment. And with half the heavily armed citizens of an African capital out to get them, those needs are horrifyingly constant.

If you remember the Somalia operation at all, it's from the televised image of a mutilated American corpse - one of 18 who died in the operation - being dragged through the streets by exultant local militia. Scott refrains from re-creating that travesty and doesn't need to, mainly because he shows us more than enough others. ``Black Hawk Down'' is certainly not for the faint of heart; viscera, severed limbs, ghastly efforts at field dressing and skewerings abound.

Yet the film is not, as some have described it, like a multihour version of the ``Pvt. Ryan'' D-Day sequence. Yes, the movie's fighting does rage for a good 90 minutes of screen time, but the wounding is spread out within that time frame. What is more withering is the relentless noise, tension and terror of the skirmish; even the film's brief stretches of cease-fire are pregnant with the nerve warfare of knowing more shots are on the way from heaven knows where.

And in this case, heaven, in the form of the title helicopters that ruled the sky that day and long night, can be more trouble than its worth. After the surprise snatching goes more or less as planned (in strictly military terms, it was a successful mission that achieved its goal), one Black Hawk is shot down, instantly turning the boots on the ground into the rescue squad they were trained to be. But when a second chopper falls, contingencies fail. Soldiers' instincts become confused by other eyes in the sky, which constantly feed them too much information about roadblocks and mob movements.

Soon, the U.S. ground forces become as immobilized as the twisted aircraft and must hold out against overwhelming odds as the only really big U.N. armored force in the city - hard-to-convince Pakistanis, as it familiarly turns out - have to be persuaded to help.

Several players - Josh Hartnett, Tom Sizemore, a slippery Delta supersoldier played by Eric Bana, Sam Shepard as the general in charge, frustratedly watching the paralyzing fiasco on video monitors back at the safe, seaside HQ - come into relief as the grueling standoff wears on. But there are more than 40 American speaking parts in the piece, and there's something both appalling and thoroughly modern about the fact that we're never really sure who most of them are (and we're watching real soldiers' stories, although a few of the actors play composite characters). This is, after all, how most of us perceive war today, removed by lenses, censorship and spin from its real human element.

But Scott replicates this feeling without divorcing us from the shattering human cost. Like his ``Gladiator'' general - but with the help of actual army aircraft and, according to his count, a million fired rounds - Scott virtually unleashed hell on ``Black Hawk's'' Moroccan location. An invasion force of artisans headed by cinematographer Slawomir Idziak, production designer Arthur Max and film editor Pietro Scalia made every flaming cranny of the doomscape so vivid you can feel the burn.

And the whole enterprise makes you thankful that the military has been able to avoid a similarly drastic situation in Afghanistan. If any movie has the power to make you pray, you'll ask that the current war stays on that course after you've seen ``Black Hawk Down.''

``BLACK HAWK DOWN''

(Rated R: violence, language)

The stars: Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana, William Fichtner, Ewen Bremner, Sam Shepard, Jason Isaacs.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by Ken Nolan, based on Mark Bowden's book. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Scott. Released by Columbia Pictures.

Running time: Two hours, 23 minutes.

Playing: AMC Century 14, Century City; Criterion, Santa Monica.

Our rating: Four stars