Behind Enemy Lines
The premiere of “Behind Enemy Lines” was held aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. I wonder if it played as a comedy. Its hero is so reckless and its villains so incompetent that it’s a showdown between a man begging to be shot, and an enemy that can’t hit the side of a Bos-nian barn. This is not the story of a fugitive trying to sneak through enemy terrain and be rescued, but of a movie character magically transported from one photo opportunity to another.
Owen Wilson stars as Burnett, a hot-shot Navy flier who “signed up to be a fighter pilot–not a cop on a beat no one cares about.” On a recon mission over Bosnia, he and his partner Stackhouse ( Gabriel Macht ) venture off mission and get digital photos of a mass grave and illegal troop movements. It’s a Serbian operation in violation of a fresh peace treaty, and the Serbs fire two missiles to bring the plane down.
The plane’s attempts to elude the missiles supply the movie’s high point. The pilots eject. Stackhouse is found by Tracker ( Vladimir Mashkov ), who tells his commander Lokar ( Olek Krupa ) to forget about a big pursuit and simply allow him to track Burnett. That sets up the cat-and-mouse game in which Burnett wanders through open fields, stands on the tops of ridges and stupidly makes himself a target, while Tracker is caught in one of those nightmares where he runs and runs but just can’t seem to catch up.
Back on the USS Vinson, Admiral Reigart ( Gene Hackman ) is biting his lower lip. He wants to fly in and rescue Burnett, but is blocked by his NATO superior, Admiral Piquet (Joaquim de Almeida)–a Frenchman who is so devious he substitutes French NATO troops for Americans in a phony rescue mission, and calls them off just when Burnett is desperately waving from a pickup area. Bet you a shiny new dime that when this movie plays in France, Admiral Piquet becomes an Italian.
The first-time director is John Moore , who has made lots of TV commercials, something we intuit in a scene where Reigart orders Burnett to proceed to another pick-up area, and Burnett visualizes fast-motion whooshing tracking shots up and down mountains and through valleys before deciding, uh-uh, he ain’t gonna do that.
What Burnett does do is stroll through Bosnia like a bird watcher, exposing himself in open areas and making himself a silhouette against the skyline. He’s only spotted in the first place because when his buddy is cornered, he’s hiding safely but utters a loud involuntary yell and then starts to run up an exposed hillside. First rule of not getting caught: No loud involuntary yells within the hearing of the enemy.
This guy is a piece of work. Consider the scene where Burnett substitutes uniforms with a Serbian fighter. He even wears a black ski mask covering his entire face. He walks past a truck of enemy troops, and then what does he do? Why, he removes the ski mask, revealing his distinctive blond hair, and then he turns back toward the truck so we can see his face, in case we didn’t know who he was. How did this guy get through combat training? Must have been a social promotion to keep him with his age group.
At times Burnett is pursued by the entire Serbian army, which fires at him with machine guns, rifles and tanks, of course never hitting him. The movie recycles the old howler where hundreds of rounds of ammo miss the hero, but all he has to do is aim and fire, and–pow! another bad guy jerks back, dead. I smiled during the scene where Admiral Reigart is able to use heat-sensitive satellite imagery to look at high-res silhouettes of Burnett stretched out within feet of the enemy. Maybe this is possible. What I do not believe is that the enemies in this scene could not spot the American uniform in a pile of enemy corpses.
Do I need to tell you that the ending involves a montage of rueful grins, broad smiles, and meaningful little victorious nods, scored with upbeat rock music? No, probably not.
And of course we get shots of the characters and are told what happened to them after the story was over–as if this is based on real events. It may have been inspired by the adventures of Air Force pilot Scott O’Grady, who was rescued after being shot down over Bosnia in 1995, but based on real life, it’s not.
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Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.
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- Owen Wilson as Burnett
- Joaquim De Almeida as Piquet
- Vladimir Mashkov as Tracker
- David Keith as O'Malley
- Gene Hackman as Reigart
- David Veloz
Based On A Story by
- James Thomas
Directed by
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Behind enemy lines.
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Common Sense Media Review
By Nell Minow , based on child development research. How do we rate?
Action movie with intense peril and devastation.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that this movie, though rated PG-13, has intense peril and devastating violence, with many characters killed. Children and young teens are involved. There is brief strong language.
Why Age 15+?
Characters drink and smoke.
Strong language.
Battle violence.
Any Positive Content?
Drinking, drugs & smoking.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.
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Violence & Scariness
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Sex, Romance & Nudity
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Parents need to know that this movie, though rated PG-13, has intense peril and devastating violence, with many characters killed. Children and young teens are involved. There is brief strong language. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .
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Based on 2 parent reviews
Great War Film With Intense Action
What's the story.
In BEHIND ENEMY LINES, Navy navigator Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson), is stationed in Bosnia and impatient for action. When he and his partner are sent out on a routine reconnaissance mission on Christmas Day, they stray out of the prescribed area because they see something suspicious. Then they are shot down. All of this is very inconvenient to NATO, which is in the final stages of negotiating a very fragile peace agreement. Burnett tries to stay alive and get to a safe rendezvous spot as his commanding officer, Admiral Reigart (Gene Hackman), tries to direct a rescue mission. Burnett is chased by an assassin through minefields and desolation of all kinds, from ravaged trees to burnt-out cities. Meanwhile, the Admiral has an almost as treacherous struggle as he makes use of the most sophisticated technology to track Burnett's position but is thwarted by politics when he orders a rescue.
Is It Any Good?
Behind Enemy Lines is an old-fashioned, heart-thumping rescue mission story with about 90-pulse-pounding minutes of non-stop nightmarish action. First-time feature director John Moore masters both the second-by-second intensity of the action sequences and the bleakness of the physical and political landscape. The parallels between the personal, the psychic, and the political are subtly intertwined, and the rousing, send-in-the-Marines finish is especially satisfying.
In the midst of the action, there are dozens of moments filled with quiet power. Hackman, as always, is a joy to watch, doing wonders with the subtle struggle of a by-the-books patriot whose loyalty and sense of honor makes him risk everything, knowing that his career is on the line. Wilson, in his first major dramatic role, does not show much range, but is a very likeable presence as a classic American hero – brave, resourceful, and a little cynical, but everything we would hope for when the time comes. Charles Malick Whitfield is the Marine we all want to rescue us, and David Keith contributes a fine performance as the Admiral's aide.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the complexity of today's military actions, compared to the stark contrast between freedom and tyranny in previous wars (at least as portrayed in most history books and movies). They might want to compare this movie to others like Three Kings (very mature material) and The Longest Day .
Movie Details
- In theaters : November 30, 2001
- On DVD or streaming : April 23, 2002
- Cast : Gabriel Macht , Gene Hackman , Owen Wilson
- Director : John Moore
- Studio : Twentieth Century Fox
- Genre : Action/Adventure
- Run time : 106 minutes
- MPAA rating : PG-13
- MPAA explanation : war violence and some language
- Last updated : September 11, 2023
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Behind Enemy Lines (2001)
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Behind Enemy Lines
The title is "Behind Enemy Lines," but it might as well have been "Be All That You Can Be." An unembarrassed, high-octane demonstration of the virtues of a U.S. military with a mission, the latest war pic from 20th Century Fox couldn't be better timed to fit the popular mood.
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an Be.” An unembarrassed, high-octane demonstration of the virtues of a U.S. military with a mission, the latest war pic from 20th Century Fox — a studio with a proud tradition in this field — couldn’t be better timed to fit the popular mood, especially a mood imbued with a building sense of victory in present-day Afghanistan. The fantasy behind the bloated pic from tyro helmer John Moore and writers David Veloz and Zak Penn is that the focused purpose defining the current war is actually applied to the muddled international mess that was the war in Bosnia. As gray as the backstory’s real politics may be, the conflict on screen couldn’t be more black-and-white, ultimately reducing a dizzyingly complex civil war situation into a visual effects-laden, cat-and-mouse cartoon. A rushed release from 2002 to the holiday season is a marketing masterstroke that will deliver explosive B.O.
Popular on Variety
As he cools his heels along with his mates on the USS Carl Vinson during a peacekeeping mission off the Balkan coast, fighter jet navigator Lt. Burnett’s (Owen Wilson) voiced yearnings for genuine battle already sound quaint in the post-Sept. 11 atmosphere. Although Veloz and Penn’s script has crossed signals from the start — Burnett is a big kid who likes playing football on the Vinson’s deck, and at the same time is depicted as a grunt with the Vision Thing — the itchiness Burnett feels is the same kind of confused yearning heard among the dusty soldiers of “Three Kings.”Actually, the war is on hold, since the so-called “Cincinnati Accord” has just been inked by warring Bosnian Serbs and Muslims, and no armed maneuvers can continue while the peace details are worked out on the ground. Burnett must have taken those TV recruitment commercials seriously, though, and just to drive the point home, rock ‘n’ roll rumbles under everything he does, while his commanding officer, Admiral Reigart (Gene Hackman) is his paternal boss practicing tough love.
When Burnett hands in his request to leave the service, Reigart reviews his list of run-ins with MPs, and considers his complaints so much immature whining. Both, predictably, are in for a wake-up call.
Moore’s background in musicvideos and commercials and influence from the Jerry Bruckheimer school of filmmaking is all too apparent from the first cranked-up track-shots-on-speed takes of the big ship and our hero, but nothing in these noodlings or the standard-issue set-up prepares viewers for the spectacular action sequence at the 20-minute-mark that really sets the movie into full motion.
Reminded by supreme NATO Admiral Piquet (Joaquim de Almeida) that he’s on a short leash, Reigart orders a simple photo reconnaissance mission. It falls to Burnett and his pilot buddy Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht) — during Christmas Eve, no less — but routine collapses when Burnett spots Serb activity in what should be a demilitarized zone. The camera on their F-18 records Serb troops, arms and, worst of all, a killing field, and right away, the Serbs fire heat-seeking missiles at the jet. What follows is a thrilling dogfight, with the F-18 pair doing their Chuck Yeager best to elude the missiles, until one clips the wings and sends the crew into a terrifying drop to the ground.
It’s a jolting coup de theatre, and one that the movie never tops. Stackhouse, downed by a broken leg, is at the mercy of the ruthless Serbs, as Burnett, trying to reach high ground to radio for rescue, witnesses his buddy’s execution. The entire Balkan conflict now comes down to Burnett — who eludes more bullets than even a Hollywood superhero has any right to do — vs. evil Serb commander Lokar (Olek Krupa), his tenacious marksman known only as Tracker (Vladimir Mashkov) and what looks like half the Serb army.
To make matters worse for Burnett, Reigart is hamstrung by the international accords from sending in a U.S. rescue squad anywhere near where he’s fleeing. Though the executive battle between Reigart and Piquet is meant to carry heavy political meaning, it’s dramatized, despite Hackman’s determined efforts, in the clunkiest manner possible, and it tends to only interrupt the suspense and pace of Burnett’s race across Bosnia.
Unfortunately, Moore’s staging alternates unevenly between a strong grasp of suspense and a total surrender to the thinking that seeks the biggest possible bang. What could have been an emotionally draining episode as Burnett finds himself in a field of land mines ends up being a crude set piece to show off a domino-like string of explosions.
On the other hand, Moore captures the pure chaos of urban warfare as effectively as anything since Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” in a startling sequence involving a Muslim enclave that reveals itself as a bombed-out shopping mall.
It’s clear that any action-oriented thesp could have handled the Burnett role, since Wilson is given few moments beyond the opening section to give his own comic flavor to the character. What Moore and Co. truly could have used was Wilson the writer, since the various attempts to bring a sense of off-kilter fun and even satire to the story are gravely half-hearted.
Hackman doesn’t generate his usual fire for the conflicted admiral, who, written differently, could have been a great role for the hardest-working thesp in showbiz.
The re-skedded release of “Behind Enemy Lines” contains unforeseen benefits and deficits. Beyond being in perfect tandem with the new national patriotism, it appears at the same time as Danis Tanovic’s Cannes-awarded “No Man’s Land,” also set during the Bosnian war. The great difference — and it proves to be all the difference in the world — is Tanovic’s war-battered sense of the absurd, and this pic’s unabashed flag-waving.
The rush to the holidays has visibly forced cutting corners in the effects department, producing both stunning and all-too-obviously digitized pyrotechnics. A cornucopia of optical tricks, many of them already overused in the TV ad world Moore came out of, tend to give pic an artificial feel. Just as off-putting is Don Davis’ score, which, given what’s onscreen, can only be termed bombastic.
- Production: A 20th Century Fox release and presentation of a Davis Entertainment production. Produced by John Davis. Executive producers, Stephanie Austin, Wyck Godfrey. Co-producer, Alex Blum. Directed by John Moore. Screenplay, David Veloz, Zak Penn.
- Crew: Camera (Deluxe color and prints, Panavision widescreen), Brendan Galvin; editor, Paul Martin Smith; music, Don Davis; production designer, Nathan Crawley; supervising art director, Patrick Lumb; art directors, Ivo Husnjak, Neno Pecur; set decorator, Mario Ivezic; costume designer, George L. Little; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS), Ian Voigt; sound designer, Craig Berkey; supervising sound editor, Berkey; visual effects, Reality Check Studios, Pixel Magic, Encore Visual Effects, Riot Pictures, Asylum Visual Effects; visual effects supervisors, Rich Thorne, Kory Jones, Raymond McIntyre Jr., Peter W. Moyer; digital effects, Pacific Title & Art Studio; miniatures, Rhythm & Hues Studio; special visual effects, Illusion Arts; animation, Bionic Digital; special effects supervisor, Garth Inns; stunt coordinator, Steve M. Davison; assistant director, Justin Muller; aerial camera, David B. Nowell; second unit camera, Stefan von Borbely; casting, Eyde Belasco, Sheila Trezise. Reviewed at 20th Century Fox Studios, L.A., Nov. 19, 2001. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 106 MIN.
- With: Burnett - Owen Wilson Reigart - Gene Hackman Stackhouse - Gabriel Macht Rodway - Charles Malik Whitfield Piquet - Joaquim de Almeida O'Malley - David Keith Lokar - Olek Krupa Tracker - Vladimir Mashkov Bazda - Marko Ogonda
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FILM REVIEW
FILM REVIEW; Immersed in War (in Bosnia for a Change) With Gusto and Gadgetry
By Stephen Holden
- Nov. 30, 2001
''Behind Enemy Lines,'' a taut wartime rescue thriller that sustains a relentless buzzing energy, feels very much of the moment, even though it is set in the Balkans and not in Afghanistan.
Directed by John Moore, from a screenplay by David Veloz and Zak Penn, it provides about as intense an immersion in military ambience as a Hollywood movie could hope to provide in just over 90 minutes. Even with its occasional lapses into melodramatic fakery, its cool, machine-tooled mixture of jargon, gadgetry, offhanded machismo and war-is-hell imagery feels far more authentic than in most Hollywood war movies.
Without excessive flag-waving or patriotic bluster, ''Behind Enemy Lines'' plays into the new spirit of gung-ho militancy that has swept the nation since Sept. 11. Its two heroes, Lt. Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson), a talented naval aviator, and his commander, Admiral Reigart (Gene Hackman), who leads the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson, are seasoned military men, each with a renegade streak. When the going gets tough, both are willing to risk their careers to defy authority.
Although the movie is basically a cut-and-dried thriller, it sends an implicit message that blind obedience to military command isn't always the best policy and that a judicious flouting of the rules is sometimes the nobler choice.
As the story begins, the war in Bosnia is winding to a close. A joint coalition of American and NATO forces is overseeing the cease-fire. In a few days the Americans are scheduled to leave the area.
The NATO commander, Admiral Piquet (Joaquim de Almeida), although sharing the same rank with Reigart, is technically his superior, and a subplot of the movie follows the personal power struggle between the two that has subtle global implications.
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Behind Enemy Lines (2001)
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Owen Wilson is a disillusioned pilot aboard an American aircraft carrier. Bored with the relentlessness of it all, he puts in his papers to the chagrin of his commanding officer. With two weeks left to go, he is flying a reconnaissance mission over Bosnia when he is shot down, his pilot murdered by rogue troops and he is forced to flee for his life - pursued by a ruthless sniper - whilst his task force colleagues try to find and rescue him. Based on a true story, it is actually quite a well paced manhunt with plenty of peril and pace. What diminishes it is the really poor choice of actor to lea... read the rest.
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Behind Enemy Lines
- Action/Adventure , Drama , War
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In Theaters
- Owen Wilson as Lieutenant Chris Burnett; Gene Hackman as Admiral Reigart; Joaquim De Almeida as Piquet; David Keith as O’Malley; Gabriel Macht as Stackhouse; Olek Krupa as Lokar
Home Release Date
Distributor.
- 20th Century Fox
Movie Review
Adrenaline junkies who lack the attention span required for a cerebral thriller like Spy Game now have their own geopolitical actioner for the 2001 holiday season, the spastically filmed and frenetically edited Behind Enemy Lines . Chris Burnett has spent seven years in the Navy waiting to see “real” military action. Currently stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Adriatic Sea, he’s frustrated about policing skirmishes he can’t understand, and tells his commanding officer, “I signed up to be a fighter pilot. I didn’t want to be a cop walking a beat nobody cares about. We’re not fighting; we’re watching.” He’s about to walk away from the military when, during a final reconnaissance mission, Burnett and his pilot violate a no-fly zone and snap pictures of some things no one was meant to see. The bad guys fire heat-seeking missiles (I’ve never seen a movie get more mileage out of one plane going down) and the men eject. On the snow-covered ground they must contend with a devious tracker, a ruthless secret police enforcer and a tenacious army equipped with heavy artillery. And they’re taking no prisoners. It’s a game of survival until help arrives, assuming Admiral Reigart can out-shank a political strategy that puts a pending peace treaty ahead of Burnett’s life.
positive elements: Reigart and others nobly put their safety and careers at risk to save a colleague. One serviceman reminds a frustrated Burnett that “everybody has a role to play” in their mission. Burnett risks his own life to retrieve photos proving that the army pursuing him is guilty of genocidal atrocities, in part to make sure his partner’s death was not in vain. Local rebels offer kindness (a ride and a Coca-Cola) to Burnett while he’s on the run. By the end of the film, the young lieutenant learns to respect the distant, faceless global struggles he previously held in contempt.
sexual content: None.
violent content: War violence is rampant. Burnett and Stackhouse have their plane destroyed, though both manage to escape and parachute to earth. Stackhouse suffers a bloody, broken leg which prohibits him from escaping when the bad guys roll in. He is interrogated and then shot in the head at close range. A vicious sniper targets Burnett throughout. Tanks, machine guns, landmines, trip-wires and other instruments of destruction take their toll. Many buildings get devastated and the body count mounts. An officer steps on a mine and we hear him blow up. Burnett slogs through a muddy mass grave, climbing over severed body parts (there’s a flashback to how those bodies got there, as common folk are lined up and mowed down by a firing squad, then beaten to pieces). The police enforcer angrily unloads a pistol into an already-dead body. The driver of a pickup truck gets shot through the windshield before the vehicle flips over. A final showdown between Burnett and the sniper tracking him involves both men shooting each other and beating each other bloody before the young American stabs his enemy in the chest with a signal flare. U.S. choppers and Bosnian ground troops exchange fire, which leaves the snow littered with bodies.
crude or profane language: More than 40 profanities, including one f-word, a dozen misuses of the Lord’s name, 13 s-words and an obscene gesture.
drug and alcohol content: None.
other negative elements: Not so much “negative” as sobering. A young civilian who assists Burnett expresses a love for Western rap and hip-hop music, specifically Ice Cube and Public Enemy. It’s a sad reminder that the violent entertainment we ship abroad colors the way our society is perceived by those who haven’t experienced America first-hand.
conclusion: Behind Enemy Lines is a chaotic testosterone-fest that will briefly satisfy the visceral appetites of young American males wanting fewer talking heads on CNN and more Gulf War-style photos of midnight bombing raids. Jingoistic patriotism reigns, seeming all the more juvenile in light of current events. The film is loud and busy. That volume and visual energy stands in for realistic dialogue and believable scenarios. In a few scenes, Wilson is pinned down in seemingly impossible situations. The next thing we see is our fair-haired boy running through a forest or field with no explanation of how he managed to escape being picked off by his sneering pursuer, who has to be the worst “crack-shot” sniper in the hemisphere. It all makes Top Gun seem downright poignant.
John Moore is best known in the industry for his effects-heavy television spots for Adidas, Guiness and—big surprise—SEGA. So is it any wonder that Behind Enemy Lines often plays like a commercial, or a video game, or a commercial for a video game? What Moore intends as visual style seems more like a kid testing out all the special gizmos on a new high-tech video camera after downing a six-pack of Jolt cola. It’s a mindless popcorn flick in the truest sense. Of course, some viewers demand nothing more for their seven or eight dollars. But even among those thrill-seekers, a sizable number would rather not have to avoid the trip-wires of language and violence that, in this case, take full advantage of the limits of the PG-13 rating.
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Summary A Navy pilot (Wilson) is shot down over enemy territory, and struggles to survive the relentless pursuit of a ruthless secret police enforcer, a deadly tracker, and countless hostile troops. With time running out, the injured pilot's commanding officer (Hackman) goes against orders to carry out a desperate rescue mission. (20th Century ... Read More
Directed By : John Moore
Written By : Jim Thomas, John Thomas, David Veloz, Zak Penn
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A rebellious Navy pilot goes on the run in enemy territory after his jet is shot down over Bosnia.
Moved up from its original 2002 release date to capitalize on post-World Trade Center patriotic fervor, this military drama is essentially a Chuck Norris movie with trendy production values. Idealistic young Navy pilots Burnett (Owen Wilson) and Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht) are cooling their heels aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson, which is cruising the Adriatic Sea as part of a NATO peacekeeping mission in the Balkans. After seven combat-free years in the service, Stackhouse is restless and Burnett has tendered his resignation, prompting gruff commanding officer Admiral Reigart (Gene Hackman) to send them on a Christmas Eve reconnaissance mission over Bosnia: That'll teach the whippersnappers to complain they don't get to fly enough! The pilots decide to scare up a little adventure and deviate from their flight plan, whereupon their $40 million plane is shot out of the sky by heat-seeking missiles. Burnett and Stackhouse parachute to safety, but the injured Stackhouse is murdered by Serbian paramilitary forces while Burnett is off searching for higher ground from which to contact his superiors. And the chase is on: The callow Burnett is pursued by moustache-twirling Serbian leader Lokar (Olek Krupa) and his human hellhound, the Tracker (Vladimir Mashkov), across a war-torn landscape of blasted buildings, mass graves, treacherous minefields and traumatized civilians. Meanwhile, NATO bigwig Admiral Piquet (Joaquim de Almeida) is telling Admiral Reigart to sit on his hands; sending American troops to rescue his problem child could endanger a newly minted peace treaty. There's a reason the tone of Balkan films about the turmoil of the '90s leans toward pitch-black comedy — the grotesque absurdities of the conflict don't lend themselves to the clear-cut moral distinctions Hollywood filmmakers generally prefer. At the same time, gung-ho obedience to rules and regulations isn't cool enough for contemporary moviegoers, so this film contorts itself trying to celebrate military values through characters whose behavior would get them court-martialed in real life. Insolent flyboys ignore their flight plan and nearly cause an international incident. A veteran officer unhappy with his orders undermines them through media manipulation, then defies his superiors outright and imperils peace efforts. But that's okay, the movie assures us — the treaty was bogus and if the pilots had done as they were told, they wouldn't have accidentally uncovered evidence of war crimes. Sure, the film's flashy visuals (apparently geared to engaging video game-impaired attention spans) are entertaining, but its cynicism is distasteful.
Behind Enemy Lines Review
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04 Jan 2002
106 minutes
Behind Enemy Lines
As every schoolboy knows, truth is the first casualty of war. Hence the main Hollywood trend post-September 11 seems to be towards skewed events in American military actions. Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down takes patriotic liberties with events in Somalia, while Behind Enemy Lines has Bosnia as the background against which a true story is given a triumphal spin.
In this case it's the tale of Scott O'Grady (fictionalised as Lt. Chris Burnett), a U.S. fighter pilot who was shot down in Bosnia and daringly rescued by American forces against NATO wishes. But there the history lesson ends, and what William Goldman would no doubt refer to as "Hollywood bullshit" is shovelled in by the cartload. But as long as you know that you're being comprehensively frogmarched up the garden path, it's a hell of a ride. Newcomer John Moore steals from all the right places, topping and tailing the movie with "homages" to Top Gun, lifting a Saving Private Ryan one-man-to-rescue motif, while his post-Matrix shooting style owes a lot to Three Kings.
The action sequences are superlative: a missile/jet chase scene is hold-your-breath-'til-you-turn-blue good. There's even the occasional hint of intelligence, as in a scene where the frustrated NATO commander points out to a fuming Hackman that America's demand that they risk the whole peace process for the sake of one soldier is patently batty.
But - and perhaps this element was injected after the World Trade Center attacks - it soon settles, plot-wise at least, into standard Hollywood war movie territory, with swarthy Bosnians in Bad Guys position and the clean-cut Wilson as our golden-haired, all-American hero. So, although the creeping hand of propaganda is in evidence, as long as you're inoculated against the flag-waving histrionics, Behind Enemy Lines is a great deal of brash, ballistic fun.
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A film franchise about the trials and tribulations of when soldiers are caught behind enemy lines. The series began with Behind Enemy Lines in 2001, followed by films in 2006, 2009 and 2014. All four films feature the United States Navy.
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Behind Enemy Lines (2001)
The past few months have seen Hollywood scrambling to reschedule a number of unfortunately timed projects involving terrorists, exploding skyscrapers, and the like. Behind Enemy Lines is the first movie that seems more timely, not less, in light of recent events.
Artistic/Entertainment Value
Moral/spiritual value, age appropriateness, mpaa rating, caveat spectator.
In these days of healing wounds and hunting villains, of American flags and heroes in uniform, Behind Enemy Lines is an unabashedly patriotic pop anthem of courage under fire and sticking it to the bad guy. At a time when America is fighting a “new kind of war,” this movie wants to be a war picture with a difference, set in the fictional near-future rather than the recent or more distant past. And, with special forces behind enemy lines enjoying a prominence and even a celebrity like never before, this film gives us a feel-good story about a hero alone in hostile territory, faced with overwhelming opposition forces, surviving by his wits.
That the hero is played by laconic, ironic Owen Wilson ( Shanghai Noon ) suggests that the filmmakers aren’t going for another Pearl Harbor here.
Flashes of flamboyant style and absurdist wit recall Three Kings , Spike Jonze’s startlingly original post-Gulf-War skewering of the war picture. But whereas Three Kings — though a better film — was cynical and antiheroic, a deconstructionist product of the Clinton era, Behind Enemy Lines goes over the top and beyond in grandly heroic and even superheroic style, in a way unmatched by any war movie since the Reagan-era blockbuster Rambo: First Blood Part II .
What saves it from becoming camp is that Wilson is no Rambo, no superhuman commando fighting machine, but a competent everyman overwhelmed by what’s happening to him (think Bruce Willis in the original Die Hard ). Behind Enemy Lines doesn’t approach the originality of Three Kings or Die Hard — or even Rambo — but it will make you think of them, along with the glossy romanticism of Top Gun , and the relentless pursuit of Jude Law by Ed Harris in Enemy at the Gates .
It will also make you think of a thousand hackneyed scenes in which helicopters rise up from beneath cliff ridges, a ranking officer demanding action is told “This isn’t strictly legal, sir…”, a hero dashes through a hail of machine-gun fire without taking a single bullet, and a C.O. on the brink of leading a time-critical mission wastes precious moments pausing to (yes) deliver a speech about how dangerous the mission is and to invite anyone who wishes to do so to back out now — followed of course by a camera panning past heroic troops standing at attention.
Behind Enemy Lines isn’t great moviemaking by any means. Yet it’s consistently gripping pop entertainment, a slickly crafted war/action movie with a number of harrowing action sequences, a rousing finale, and an unorthodox hero.
Wilson plays Lt. Chris Burnett — not a commando, nor even a pilot, but a Navy aviator stationed on a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Adriatic Sea, flying patrol missions along the Bosnian DMZ on the eve of a NATO withdrawal from the region.
His family is proud of him — “You got important things to do over there,” his father tells him when he calls to explain that he won’t be home for Christmas — but Burnett hasn’t found much to be proud about. “Everyone thinks they’re going to get a chance to punch some Nazis at Normandy,” he laments. “And those days are long over. Now all you get to do is eat Jell-O.”
Burnett’s Jell-O eating days are abruptly halted when he and his pilot deviate from their prescribed patrol route and photograph something they weren’t supposed to see, thereby of course jeopardizing the fragile treaty and cease-fire currently in force. The sequence that follows is one of the most harrowing aerial episodes in any war picture; and, given the title of the film, it’s only a matter of time before Burnett finds himself hoofing it across the Bosnian countryside, hunted by innumerable enemy forces and a dauntless Bosnian tracker (Vladimir Mashkov in comic-book villain mode).
Other gripping sequences include one in which Burnett’s superior Admiral Reigart (Gene Hackman) watches via satellite heat-signature imagery ( à la Harrison Ford in Clear and Present Danger ) as enemy troops close in on Burnett, seemingly certain to find him — until an appalling revelation shows us something Reigart’s satellite imagery doesn’t.
In another haunting moment, eerie echoes of childish laughter hover among the empty buildings of an abandoned oil refinery, leading to a wrenching glimpse of what the children are doing, and where. There are also moments of comic relief, including a brief exhange with a teenaged Bosnian resistance fighter with a rifle slung over his shoulder and a picture of American rapper Ice Cube on his shirt.
Like last week’s Spy Game , Behind Enemy Lines touches simplistically on questions of politics and media in modern warfare without really engaging the underlying complexities. Both movies embrace feel-good solutions, with older veterans (Robert Redford, Hackman) orchestrating the rescue of younger heroes (Brad Pitt, Wilson) in spite of potential consequences; and media leaks are used to counteract political special interests with public pressure. (Both movies also feature gimmicky, hyperkinetic direction — Spy Game from Tony Scott, Behind Enemy Lines from former commercial director John Moore.)
One difference is that in Spy Game the potential risk was only to a Chinese trade agreement, whereas in Behind Enemy Lines the outcome could be war. “You might save one man today, and I emphasize ‘might,’ ” a NATO official warns Reigart, “but you risk the lives of thousands tomorrow.” Of course, given the nature of what Burnett and his pilot have discovered, it might be worth hazarding the cease-fire and the treaty to bring it to light. But the film doesn’t explore this; instead, Burnett wants to make sure their discovery gets out so that his pilot’s death won’t be in vain.
In its final act, Behind Enemy Lines abandons all pretense of realism in favor of cartoony exploits, coincidences, and symbolic tidiness that will leave audiences either fuming or cheering, depending on their willingness to believe. I predict cheering. Behind Enemy Lines is not a perfect movie, but it’s the right movie at the right time.
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Behind Enemy Lines
Time out says, release details.
- Duration: 106 mins
Cast and crew
- Director: John Moore
- Screenwriter: David Veloz, Zak Penn
- Owen Wilson
- Gene Hackman
- Gabriel Macht
- Joaquim de Almeida
- David Keith
- Vladimir Mashkov
- Charles Malik Whitfield
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Is Behind Enemy Lines Based on a True Story?
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‘Behind Enemy Lines’ is a 2001 war movie that tells the courageous tale of Lieutenant Chris Burnett, an American naval flight officer, who is shot down in enemy territory and uncovers evidence of genocide during the Bosnian War. As Chris tries to survive a group of trigger happy hunters, he has to rely on his wits and resourcefulness, since no help is available immediately. Meanwhile, his commanding officer fights to launch a search and rescue mission, to bring Chris home safely. It is an inspiring tale of courage in the face of death and showcases the heroism of soldiers. So, is ‘Behind Enemy Lines’ based on a true story?
The True Story Behind Enemy Lines:
![behind enemy lines movie review](https://thecinemaholic.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/movies-behind-enemy-lines-owen-wilson.jpg)
On June 2, 1995, O’Grady and Wright were on a routine combat air patrol, where they were flying in an oval pattern over northwest Bosnia. Although they knew about fixed missile sites along much of the route, there was a mobile site that intelligence units had not spotted. Wright’s detection system had relayed a quick warning of a potential threat, but nobody saw it coming. The military later uncovered that a U-2, a high-flying reconnaissance plane had picked up illumination from the mobile base minutes before O’Grady and Wright were hit, but they couldn’t relay the message in time.
The Serbs shot the missile without radar guidance, to avoid detection, and only turned it on when they were close to the F-16. As O’Grady ejected, he thought his parachute might burn up, and while landing, he noticed paramilitary troops chasing him. Luckily, they didn’t shoot, and he cut his chute, grabbed some essentials, and ran into the woods. This is quite similar to Chris’ adventures in the film. O’Grady also describes that within moments, others were walking beside him, and the first two were a man and a boy. Chris, too, interacts with some locals on his quest for survival.
O’Grady never lost hope, though the enemy came uncomfortably close to detecting him on quite a few occasions. He moved at night and survived on the bare minimum. Finally, he was able to make contact with one of his squadron mates. Soon, four marine helicopters entered enemy territory to rescue O’Grady, while around 40 other planes were on standby. O’Grady ran into a small clearing clutching his 9mm pistol in case there was enemy fire. The Marines covered him while he got onto the chopper. While the movie shows Chris’ rescue in a similar manner, it is much more action-packed with enemies shooting at him from all sides.
That is not to say that O’Grady’s rescue was uneventful. Even as he was being flown away, the chopper came under anti-aircraft and missile fire, and a bullet even bounced off the canteen of a Marine sitting a few feet away from the rescued pilot. However, he got away safely, and O’Grady spent two days on the USS Kearsarge, where he got medical care, before he was flown back to the US, and welcomed as a hero.
Scott O’Grady’s Problem With Behind Enemy Lines:
![behind enemy lines movie review](https://thecinemaholic.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/58aa64293c873.image_.jpg)
When ‘Behind Enemy Lines’ came out, O’Grady was once again pushed into the spotlight and he gave numerous interviews saying the film deviated from his own experiences but provided an accurate description of US military action in the Balkans. However, he turned around and sued 20th Century Fox for the unauthorized appropriation of his story. Part of the complaint reads , “Captain O’Grady was also troubled that the ‘hero’ in the Fox movie used foul language, was portrayed as a ‘hot dog’ type pilot, and disobeyed orders, unlike O’Grady.”
Despite the lawsuit, ‘Behind Enemy Lines’ remains a gripping watch, and takes us into the mindset of a man who is being hunted by death constantly.
Read More: Is The Last Full Measure a True Story?
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The premiere of "Behind Enemy Lines" was held aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. I wonder if it played as a comedy. Its hero is so reckless and its villains so incompetent that it's a showdown between a man begging to be shot, and an enemy that can't hit the side of a Bos-nian barn. This is not the story of a fugitive trying to sneak through enemy terrain and be rescued, but of a ...
Rated: 3.5/10 • Sep 22, 2022. With director [John] Moore's blue-gray pallor over most of the film tinged with intermittent splashes of color and [Martin] Smith's music-video style editing ...
Our review: Parents say ( 2 ): Kids say ( 8 ): Behind Enemy Lines is an old-fashioned, heart-thumping rescue mission story with about 90-pulse-pounding minutes of non-stop nightmarish action. First-time feature director John Moore masters both the second-by-second intensity of the action sequences and the bleakness of the physical and political ...
Behind Enemy Lines: Directed by John Moore. With Owen Wilson, Gene Hackman, Gabriel Macht, Charles Malik Whitfield. A disillusioned pilot shot down over war-torn Bosnia goes on the run from the local military and an assassin, as his commanding officer risks all to save him.
Behind Enemy Lines is a 2001 American action war film directed by John Moore in his directorial debut, and starring Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman.The film tells the story of Lieutenant Chris Burnett, an American naval flight officer who is shot down over Bosnia and uncovers genocide during the Bosnian War.Meanwhile, the rear admiral commanding the carrier strike group to which he is assigned is ...
Th camera work of the plane, a mind going off mix with slow motion, facial expression was chilling. Behind Enemy Lines was from a time when Hollywood made good movies. Believable/likable characters mixed with an honest and believable story. Worth a second watch. 8 stars.
The title is "Behind Enemy Lines," but it might as well have been "Be All That You Can Be." An unembarrassed, high-octane demonstration of the virtues of a U.S. military with a mission, the latest ...
Without excessive flag-waving or patriotic bluster, ''Behind Enemy Lines'' plays into the new spirit of gung-ho militancy that has swept the nation since Sept. 11.
Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/10 | Sep 22, 2022. With director [John] Moore's blue-gray pallor over most of the film tinged with intermittent splashes of color and [Martin] Smith's music-video ...
While flying a routine reconnaissance mission over Bosnia, fighter pilot Lt. Chris Burnett photographs something he wasn't supposed to see and gets shot down behind enemy lines, where he must outrun an army led by a ruthless Serbian general. With time running out and a deadly tracker on his trail, Burnett's commanding officer, Admiral Reigart, decides to risk his career and launch a renegade ...
Movie Review. Adrenaline junkies who lack the attention span required for a cerebral thriller like Spy Game now have their own geopolitical actioner for the 2001 holiday season, the spastically filmed and frenetically edited Behind Enemy Lines.Chris Burnett has spent seven years in the Navy waiting to see "real" military action.
L.A. Weekly. A slag heap of outrageous coincidence and shimmering be-all-that-you-can-be posturing, the film is for all intents and purposes another Top Gun retread, which is why its lies don't register as deeply or offensively as those put forth by films like "Mississippi Burning" -- it's too silly to take seriously.
Some of the movie is just plain dopey, but it's so dopey it's often kind of fun to watch. The film is stylistically desperate, emmulating the rapid editing and adrenalized camera moves one might ...
Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia DVD Review. Jan 16, 2009 - This slam-bang actioner is no-holds-barred fun. Behind Enemy Lines. R.L. Shaffer. Behind Enemy Lines. Mar 28, 2002 - Owen Wilson stars as ...
Behind Enemy Lines. NEW. During a special forces operation to prevent a Vietnamese general from purchasing nuclear triggers, Mike Weston's (Thomas Ian Griffith) partner, Jones (Chris Mulkey), is ...
2001. PG-13. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. 1 h 46 m. Summary A Navy pilot (Wilson) is shot down over enemy territory, and struggles to survive the relentless pursuit of a ruthless secret police enforcer, a deadly tracker, and countless hostile troops. With time running out, the injured pilot's commanding officer (Hackman) goes against ...
Behind Enemy Lines Reviews. 49 Metascore. 2001. 1 hr 46 mins. Drama. PG13. Watchlist. Where to Watch. A rebellious Navy pilot goes on the run in enemy territory after his jet is shot down over Bosnia.
Behind Enemy Lines As every schoolboy knows, truth is the first casualty of war. Hence the main Hollywood trend post-September 11 seems to be towards skewed events in American military actions.
Visit the movie page for 'Behind Enemy Lines' on Moviefone. Discover the movie's synopsis, cast details and release date. Watch trailers, exclusive interviews, and movie review. Your guide to this ...
Behind Enemy Lines (2001) B+ SDG. The past few months have seen Hollywood scrambling to reschedule a number of unfortunately timed projects involving terrorists, exploding skyscrapers, and the like. Behind Enemy Lines is the first movie that seems more timely, not less, in light of recent events.
Of course, the film isn't trying to catch your conscience, only to stir the blood. If the Serbs weren't such cartoonish villains or Wilson so invulnerable to bullets, it might have been more ...
The True Story Behind Enemy Lines: While 'Behind Enemy Lines' is not completely a true story, it does take creative liberties based on the real events that happened in 1995. The plot draws inspiration from the Mrkonjić Grad incident which happened during the war. Scott O'Grady, the pilot on whom Chris is based, survived death for six ...
Buy a ticket to Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Save $5 on Ghostbusters 5-Movie Collection; ... Behind Enemy Lines Critic Reviews and Ratings Powered by Rotten Tomatoes Rate Movie. Close Audience Score. The percentage of users who made a verified movie ticket purchase and rated this 3.5 stars or higher. Learn more. Review Submitted. GOT IT ...
Murder Company (2024): plot summary, featured cast, reviews, articles, photos, and videos. A group of Allied operatives is sent on a covert mission behind enemy lines during World War II. Their objective is to infiltrate a Nazi stronghold and gather critical intelligence.