Behind Enemy Lines

Behind Enemy Lines ***

Bravo niner delta, what's your vector, Victor?

You'll hear lots of dialogue like that in Behind Enemy Lines. Military code talk is one of the coolest things ever. Vector, copy, come back, affirmative, negative, no-go, R(ally)P(oint)... That stuff is just plain COOL.

Back to the movie review. So – you're making a war movie with airplanes. Let's make sure you have everything you need. Stock footage? Check. Lieutenant with a ‘bad boy' attitude? Check. Stuff blowing up? Check. Politically ambiguous military situation? Che – what? That doesn't make sense. I mean, we're America... (Don't worry – We're the good guys. It's all the rest that's ambiguous.)

See, Behind Enemy Lines is set in Bosnia during the ‘last' days of the civil war in Serbia/Yugoslavia/Bosnia-Herzegovina. Chris Burnett (Wilson) is stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Adriatic Sea. The ship is commanded by Admiral Leslie Reigart (Hackman), who in turn is under the command of NATO, represented by Admiral Piquet (de Almeida). Now, Burnett is a bit of a maverick. Not like the Tom Cruise type – Burnett is tired of being in the Navy. He signed on to be a fighter pilot, not a sitting around on the ship pilot. In fact, he's handed in his resignation papers. Of course, you can't just leave in the middle of a mission. When the ship returns to port, Burnett is done. Reigart doesn't really care for Burnett – he used to have potential, but now he's just dead weight. So, in a bit of vindictiveness, Reigart assigns Burnett (a navigator) and his pilot, Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht), on a recon mission on Christmas. The recon? A lake. Lovely. But, radar picks up some activity. Activity OFF OF THE ASSIGNED COURSE. Now, we've established that Burnett is a maverick, so, naturally they do recon over there. They take pictures of mass graves. Then, they get shot down. BEHIND ENEMY LINES. This is not good. See, NATO planes were not supposed to be making fly-bys in that area. A peace treaty has just been signed, and things could fall apart at any moment. So, Reigart has a choice to make – does he risk the lives of thousands of people to get one man? Does he ensure peace and leave a man behind? We all know the answer to that.

Behind Enemy Lines is slick. It is very, very slick. Teflon. It looks like a video game. A really cool video game. Shifty frame-rates, cool filters, Matrix-style special effects, Saving Private Ryan-camera-effects, it looks way cool. It's not universally realistic, but, stylistically it works very well.

The acting is also good. No one is going to win any acting awards in this picture, but, no one stinks. If you don't know who Gene Hackman is, turn off your computer right now. You have some serious catching up to do. If you don't know who Owen Wilson is, start paying attention. This guy is good. Very, very good. You may have seen him in Zoolander (he was the blonde model). You may have seen him in Shanghai Noon with Jackie Chan. You may have seen an underrated comedy called Rushmore – he co-wrote that. He's just beginning to get recognition, and he deserves it. While I think he's better in comedies, he's no slouch as a leading-man-action-hero. Joaquim de Almeida doesn't stand out, but you've seen him before. (He played Bucho (the bad guy) in Desperado)

So, that leaves us with the story. It must be tough to make a war movie now. WWII was easy – the bad guys were easy to spot. But, to make a movie based on any war post-1970 must be tricky. Things like finding ‘bad guys' aren't easy anymore. Even in something like the Gulf War. To paraphrase Mark Wahlberg from Three Kings: `I forget... Are we shooting people anymore?' The Balkan conflict was really, really tricky. First of all, there were three sides. Secondly, there was a huge history of racial strife in the area. Thirdly, NATO stepped in to prevent the war from spreading into Macedonia, which would have brought Greece (a NATO member) and Turkey (another NATO member) into the war against each other. Fourthly, keeping all the factions straight was very, very hard unless you studied political science. Behind Enemy Lines doesn't get too bogged down in the details, which is good. Nor does it name real names. Slobodan Milosovic is not mentioned, but he is implied. The story is about an American airman in the middle of the conflict, but it's not based on the story of Lt. Scott O'Grady.

What we have here is a slick, mostly non-political (there are some references to landmines being bad for children and other living things) war movie. It's not perfectly paced, but it's close. The cinematography is really, really cool. And stuff blows up.

I truly enjoyed this movie, because it took a lighthearted approach to 'running for your life' while serving in the forces. I was, however, disheartened by the fact that Scott O'Grady brought down a law suit on the study for "portraying him" in a bad light. This movie was about anything else but Scott O'Grady. Note: Sorry Scott, but it's not about you...

I enjoyed the way Wilson took control of his character and lived up to the expectation of what one would expect from a Navy pilot. Let's not forget Gene 'The Man' Hackman. It's difficult to imagine Hackman 'not' being in the service because he does it so 'friggin' well.

The movie is suspenseful and the supporting cast is simply awesome! It's just one of those films where not enough credit was given to everyone, all around!

Sure, this movie is unrealistic, slightly jingoistic, and not exactly Dr. Zhivago when it comes to a deep plot, but it's fun to watch. I'm a serious student of the military studies in a professional sense, and I fully realize that the technology (especially the missile chase) and doctrines are unrealistic, but I am also capable of suspending my critical eye when I just want to sit back and enjoy an action flick. I'll save the brain power for something that actually matters, not for a movie, which is just another form of escaping from real life for an hour or two. So yeah, this movie gets a thumbs up for a fun film to sit back and enjoy the surround sound and big screen TV while chomping on some popcorn and a Coke.

Don't a movie seriously that isn't supposed to be taken so seriously!

Lt Chris Burnett is a US Navy navigator working on a NATO mission around Bosnia. Bored with routine in the Navy and fed up flying uneventful missions to survey the peace, Burnett annoys his CO one last time by putting in his notice to quit and return to civilian life. Of course his reward is to be put on a mission on Christmas Day doing routine reconnaissance. An error in the intelligence data leads them over an no-fly zone where they see a convoy of Bosnian soldiers who should not be there and, in the process of recording them, they are attacked and shot down. Separated form Burnett, the pilot is captured and killed, leaving Burnett to evade capture for as long as he can until he can be rescued.

First of all, lets make it clear that this is not the film to come to if you are expecting anything intelligent or worthwhile about the conflict in Bosnia; if that is your aim then I would suggest maybe Saviour as a starting point but certainly not this film. However if you want a standard action movie that happens to use the bleak washed out colours of a war zone to add character as well as using the war to make lots of things go bang then this should do you – as long as you can stop your brain from thinking about the morals of using such a conflict to make a flag-waving, simplistic piece of Saturday night entertainment. The plot aspires to being some sort of serious piece about the conflict based around an action movie but it is nothing of the sort. Instead the conflict is very simplified for the purposes of leaving our brains free enough of worry and moral concern for our fellow man to be able to just enjoy things going bang. The plot sees an American soldier evade the bad guys with the aim of defeating them against the odds – it doesn't matter who the bad guys are because they are a device rather than real people – they could have been black (Black Hawk Down), Muslim (The Siege) or French (SWAT) but here they happen to be Bosnian. We don't need to worry too much about this because the film doesn't really do anything with them other than use them as the baddies to the blonde and clean cut Burnett's goodie.

I'm sure I'll get bashed as anti-American for saying things like that but that is not my intention and I'd like to think I'm just being objective; lets be honest, this is just an action movie and shouldn't be looked on as anything more. However even judged on the standards of action movies this is only an average affair, with a plot that destroys its own tension by making Burnett increasingly bullet-proof as the film goes on, leading to a climax that reminded me of the laughable ending to Rambo 3. It does have tension early on but it has blown it by the ending, and the simplistic approach to a real war is hardly helpful. The direction tries to cover the gaps by using advertising gimmicks of jump cuts and freeze frames – they aren't a replacement for content but at least they make the film a bit more interesting. Ignoring the morals of it, the use of the frozen war zone does create atmosphere really easily and it was used well.

With Hackman too old to be repeating his Bat-21 role, Wilson steps up and, aside from his usual comic stuff at the start, plays it pretty straight and has clearly aimed to be nothing more than an all-American kid just doing his duty. He aims for this and this is all he does which, in an action movie, is fine – however I kept thinking of Denis Quaid and thought how much braver he was in his choices. Hackman must have done about 2 or 3 weeks work on this film given 95% of his scenes are in one main location; he is OK but really just phones this in. The support cast is interesting in regards the Americans (people like Keith and 24's Almeida) but no effort is made on the side of the 'enemy' who are simply goons and baddies from the get go. Again it all works fine in a dumb action movie but the real setting in such a terrible conflict made me hope for more than just action fodder.

Overall this is an average action movie with a bullet-proof hero taking on baddies who look different (black, Eastern European, Muslim, whatever) to bring good to the world of evil. On this level it is nothing special although it has some nice touches of style along the way but gets silly as it comes to the end. However morally it had a responsibility to really use this stage to do more with the conflict than just use it as a backdrop. Sadly it just paints everyone as the baddies and only looks for the emotion of cheering 'our guys' on rather than feeling anything for the real people or real country. Saviour may be bleak and depressing as a film but my god it is easier to stomach at times than this was. If you want things going bang then it should do you but you'd best try to switch off your brain, morals and heart before you start watching it.

Let's see. Take one standard action film involving Americans, add in a new baddie for them to triumph over, and have the baddies act atrociously and brutally, then let the good guys be victorious in the end.

That about sums up BEL. It has reasonable special effects, a plot that is simple and oh so seen before, and a square jawed handsome hero (although, looking at Wilson's nose, not that handsome).

People have already remarked on various inaccuracies and symbolism such as the angel in the midst of war etc. Instead of going over those I'd like to point out the overriding message this film taught me.

That it's OK to disobey orders. Disobey them in such a way as to get your best friend killed. But that's OK, because no matter what happens when you disobey orders, it all comes out good in the end. You feel better about yourself and you'll bring the bad guys to book. So don't worry about your best friend. He was only a plot device anyway.

One thing is certain, though. As long as there is conflict in the world, there will be a Hollywood movie to glorify it and vilify the enemy.

And just who were the enemy? The Bosnians? The Serbs? The Croats? The film didn't seem very certain itself and neither was I, even at the end.

Particularly laughable (and somewhat disturbing) in this no brainer action film was the dreadful end sequence, where we get to find out (via the wonder of the subtitled explanation) what happens to the main characters.

Now, call me old-fashioned, but such final scene "what they did next" stuff in my book is reserved for two types of film - comedy spoofs and documentaries. This film is certainly no comedy, so the appearance of these notes, to me, would seem to imply that the movie was in part based in reality. I find this disturbing simply because there are any number of extremely dumb people out there that would see such final comments and assume the film was, after all, based on true events. And it's this kind of "it happened like this" cinema (which most often involves Americans saving the world) that concerns me most. U571 is another, now notorious, example of this. Apparently its true that history is written by the victors......

As for the movie, the opening scenes are the most rewarding. Once the movie passes into its middle it becomes a bit dull and the ending, as others have observed, is more like a Rambo film and gets quite farcical.

The movie is best watched whilst a few drinks shy of inebriation. You'll enjoy it more and not notice the foolishness (hopefully).