Behind Enemy Lines

Rating:
Summary: Cool, Exciting Action Film In Spite Of Its Gung-Ho Nature
Review: I know it is hard for us to dissociate this film from the real-life events, and actually "Behind Enemy Lines" handles with a plot that easily invites the criticism of being patriotic. Let's forget that fact for a while, for "Behind Enemy Lines" is, as an action film, smart and well-crafted.

The strength of the film lies in two leading stars: Owen Wilson, whose everyman quality gives credible power to the main character Burnett, who is trapped in the incredible situation among dangerous territories in Bosnia during his routine reconnoitre mission. Gene Hackman (himself in the Marine when he was a teenager) again provides the powerhouse acting as Admiral Reigart, who is helpless to save Burnett because of the complicated international situation and "by-the-book" system of the Navy. The only chance for aviator Burnett to survive is to reach the enemy lines by himself.

Though the film's nature might put off some audience, the power of its exciting action scenes cannot be denied. In spite of too familiar settings and too distinct definitions of "good" and "bad" guys, the director clearly knows how to build up thrilling shots with good use of hand-held cameras and effective backdrop of Slavakia (used for Bosnia-Herzegovia) captuted in muted colors and dark tones. Sometimes the camera seems indulging in its technique, but as a whole, "Behind Enemy Lines" is above average.

Another good point about the film is probably the realistic scenes shot on the real aircraft carrier of the US Navy. Well, but I don't believe that they really use the catapult THAT way (watch it!) to make a parody of a certain 'Wilson' in "Cast Away."...

Rating:
Summary: a must for flight fans
Review: This film has some of the best flight sequences I have ever seen. The cinematography is superb, and one gets a glimpse into the speed a pilot experiences as he tries to outmaneuver an oncoming missile; it also shows the "nuts and bolts" of the ejection seat process, which I found fascinating.
Having fairly low expectations for this film, I was amazed at how entertaining and visually stunning it actually is, and am surprised it did not receive greater success in its theatrical release.
It takes place in Bosnia during an imaginary time, with US forces under NATO command, and though fiction, it uses captions at the end, telling the audience what happened to the characters, as if it were a true story.

Filmed on the USS Carl Vinson, and in Slovakia, with the beauty of the Carpathian mountains as a backdrop for the horror of a war zone, director John Moore keeps the pace of this film constantly pumping. Though some characters are somewhat cartoonish, and the script at times silly, much of the acting is good. Gene Hackman can always be depended upon for a solid performance, and Owen Wilson does well as the main protagonist, who starts out as being a rather shallow, whiny fellow, and grows with his extreme experience, as he plays a cat and mouse chase with a Serbian "tracker", played by Russian actor Vladimir Maskov. Gabriel Macht is excellent in the smaller part of the fighter pilot Stackhouse.

Yes, there are times the plot is contrived and not altogether believable, but this is more than made up for by the dazzling cinematography by Brandan Galvin, a fine score by Don Davis, and astounding visual and sound effects...and if you like jets and choppers the way I do, you are guaranteed to like this film.

Rating:
Summary: Like bad propoganda
Review: A few years back, I had the opportunity to watch MI2. Remember that one? Tom Cruise motorcyling away from 200 machine gunners all of whom miss him? He turns around while doing 70 on the cycle and downs half of them with a pistol? It was so ridiculous it was as if it was to be a parody of action movies.

Well, this one's worse.

I don't want to cover much of the story as many a reviewer has done that. But at the beginning, Owen Wilson's character, a navy
lieutenant and flight navigator, is pondering leaving the navy when his tour is over in a couple of weeks. "Poor us. We don't even know what we're doing here? Where's the action, huh?" Oh, so down-home. Over-dramatic Gene Hackman, his admiral and presumed fleet commander, calls him in and reprimands him with the implication that he's trying to get him to stay. Despite the Christmas holiday, Wilson and his pilot--I don't care about the actor's name as I'll never again watch anything he's in--are to fly a recon mission over Bosnia. They go over a no-fly zone--read BREAK THE LAW--and are shot down.

I understand I need to avoid covering too much of the plot here. Despite the plot, the action is, again, reminiscent of parodies of action flicks. While Owen is escaping the enemy, countless machine gunners, tanks, marksmen, and God knows what else distinguish themselves in that they all miss him--again, and again, and again! Like bad propaganda, the Yank always outsmarts the enemy.

That's bad enough. But his running between mines that are destroying his incompetent enemies, with barely a scratch, always being missed by a few inches by the marksman who's been commissioned to kill him. It's painful to watch a story that stupid.

And throughout the whole process, the music is distracting--lots of jazzy drumbeat, hyper-military trombones, souzaphones and drums, or sappy romance music when something sentimental is supposed to be happening. It almost made me motion sick.

But, lest I go on for too long--the film isn't worth it, really--the real height of fantasy is toward the end. First, the marksman misses Owen AGAIN. Then, what a surprise, Owen pops from the snow bank, shoots the marksman five or six times, yet they still fight it out. (Drama, right? Five or six shots from a 9mm and the opponent still fights. Sure.

Surprise again, Owen wins the fight!) Then a dozen Serbian tanks
and a couple of hundred troops pop out from the trees. They're all
shooting at Wilson and ALL MISSING HIM! But Admiral Hackman comes to the rescue in three helicopters full of some tough guy marines. The tanks, troops, marksmen continue to miss Wilson who's running from them, and they even miss the US helicopters that are, oh, a quarter mile from them. But the troops on the choppers are shooting all of the enemy and never missing. Of course, we Yanks are better shots than anyone else in the world, right?

They all lived happily ever after with a homey cheer for Wilson when he gets, barely scratched, back on the carrier with the marching music now mixing with the sentimental. My tears were not falling!

Perhaps most disturbing about the film were its implications. Wilson and his pilot take the law into their own hands. Oh, I see, they found something nasty, and that justified their doing it. That's the end justified the means, something for which the Nazis were held responsible at Nuremburg. The overall theme, from Owen's character to that of Hackman's admiral, is a caricature of rugged individualism: I'll do what I please in spite of treaties, agreements, or respect for other people. That's what was most offensive about the script.

Again, avoiding too much plot detail, Owen decides to stay in the navy, and Hackman retires rather than concede to merely having disobeyed orders, something for which, in the real world an officer is court martialed.

After seeing this, I decided to painfully watch again the L. Ron Hubbard classic that made me chuckle a while back: "Battlefield Earth." That was chuckleworthy because it used every bad-fiction cliche in the book: the superhero, music to cover your ears by, really sappy romance, etc. Well, so much of it reminded me of this film that it was uncanny.

Well, I sat through the credits at the end to take notes. And my
finale is that I'll boycott anything director John Moore does, anything Owen Wilson does, and probably anything Gene Hackman does again. They should have refused to do such a terrible script.

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable but the story has holes
Review: While I enjoyed this movie, I was discouraged by several major holes, especially those which would have more clearly showed the immorality of America's agreement to stick its head in the sand and blindly obey the U.N.. Also Owen Wilson's character appears to survive more by (incredible) luck than by skill, and that's disappointing. Nonetheless, there were enough good pieces here for me to enjoy the movie.

For a much better, but similar, movie also featuring Gene Hackman, I highly recommend Bat 21. Yet another great similar movie is "Flight of the Intruder", though the plot of that movie is much more than just good guys shot down behind enemy lines.

Rating:
Summary: A fun action film
Review: Well, despite a few very minor errors, this is a great action movie. It's one of those movies that at times tends to keep you at the edge of your seat waiting on "how is the main character gonna evade his pursuers this time?" (hope i didn't give away much). The movie is great in the sense that it has lots of action for all those action-junkies like myself, and yet it still makes a lot of sense. It's not just one of those shoot-em-up and run-around-for-no-reason movies. The movie is suspenseful in a sense and has a great story, plus occasional comedy relief from no other than Owen Wilson. Some do consider Owen to be completely wrong for this part but he kind of has the right chemistry for the role. Plus, him and Gene Hackman kind of connect and depict in many ways a relationship between a "captain" and his "troop". Plus the movie is directed really well that it makes this film seem so much more realistic. (that maybe also have been caused by the fact that this movie really was shot in southeastern Europe and some of the cast were actual natives of these lands, not some americans trying their hardest to impersonate people of other nations.) Overall, a fun, exciting movie for the family, and it really does deserve the full five stars.

Rating:
Summary: What the F**K???
Review: this is the worst movie I have ever seen...What happened? Are people too scared to fly in real jets now days to shoot films like they did in top gun, so they reley on computers to do it for them? I think so! The picture might as well be a cartoon because it looks that bad. If you want to see a movie like this see top gun...Better plot, better acting and much better scenes...and all the flying is real in top gun...this one however should find its way to your local landfill and get crushed by a bulldozer!

Rating:
Summary: Bad beyond words.
Review: personally i would've been better watching something else then this stupid picture, i try to be fair when watching it , but they broke too many rules in the film. i thought i was watching a corny army video game with matrix moves in it,that the impression got anyway. owen wilson better stick to comedies because i could'nt take him seriously the lines he's given in this film are corny at best & remind me of the comedies he's done so he never fully shakes off his comedy shadow for a serious role sorry owen. it's a shame that gene hackman a very good serious/comedic actor got mix up in this turkey of a film i hope next time he's a little more careful in scripts he picks. anybody would be better off watching top gun , the tom clancy films anything but this turkey.

just thought i should warning you.

Rating:
Summary: A Top Notch Popcorn Movie.
Review: I'm not a big Owen Wilson fan, so I almost passed this film up....good thing I like Gene Hackman, or I might not have gone...

Wilson plays a Pilot who is shot down in hostile territory after taking spy photos of soldiers filling in a mass-grave. Since they are supposedly not engaging in Ethnic-Cleansing, they can't afford any evidence to the contrary to get back to NATO. The rest of the film follows Wilson's efforts to get to friendly territory so he can be rescued by Hackman, who's engaged in a different type of fight against NATO brass who think it's better that 1 man die than a nation go to war.

I was curious why Wilson was cast, but after seeing the film, it was obvious: He brings an everyman quality to the role that a bigger star wouldn't be able to. When he's being pursued by the silent Bosnian sniper, the sense of danger he conveys is very real. Hackman does his usual great job, and the film itself is beautifully directed and photographed.

If you're looking for a great escapist film, grab a bucket of popcorn and hunker down for a good time.

Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: This movie is based upon a true story.

It's Christmas day but that doesn't mean that Burnett and Stackhouse will be spared of a mission to fly over war-torn Bosnia.
As they fly over Bosnia, these two brave American soldiers notice that the serbs are still roaming the Bosnia's region but worst of all they discover a mass grave. The hand-blooded serbs don't like the idea of Americans shooting photographs from the plane and reveal their ugly deeds to the world so they Shoot the plane succesfully then things start to go terribly wrong as the Americans are behind dangerous enemy lines.
One gets captured and executed immediately. The other one escapes and this movie is how he survives.

Absolutely accurate. The Serbs and French commanders who back up their war crimes are shown like they truly are.

A must see movie.

Highly Recommended

Rating:
Summary: Action thriller
Review: I can't believe I missed this movie until now.

I think the action, Wilson running, his pursuers, reminds of another movie where Hackman was on the run.

Well, turnaround is fair play. Wilson is sarcastic at the beginning of the movie. You cannot tell if it is going to be a comedy at the first.

His character develops, both cinematically as well as personally. This shows the raw change that a person can go through when facing an ordeal.

This is a movie that inspires courage. I consider it to be very watchable. The war scenes are not shoot-em-ups, they tend to add reality to the story.