Review: Behind Enemy Lines

Next to Warner Brothers, which bought the rights to the first Harry Potter book for peanuts, 20th Century Fox is the luckiest studio around. Behind Enemy Lines -- a tight, highly entertaining and patriotic war thriller about soldiers heading into harm's way -- couldn't possibly be more timely. The aerial and ground combat special affects are so realistic they nearly constitute a breakthrough. The two major actors -- Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson -- are terrific, balancing and complimenting one another. The action is fast-paced and non-stop. Wilson really comes into his own in this is a disciplined, old-style Hollywood war yarn. And only a crisp 90 minutes long! SPOILAGE WARNING: plot is discussed, not ending.

The plot centers on an aircraft carrier patrolling near the end of the savage conflict in Bosnia. The ship is run by Americans but under the command of NATO, a setup for the murky global politics that underscore the plot. Lt. Chris Burnett (Wilson) is sick of the routines of non-combat flying and is considered a spoiled hotdog by his weary Admiral Riegart (Hackman). A wise-cracking smartass, he's sent on an aerial reconnaissance mission on Christmas Day. Ever looking to push the envelope (shades of Tom Cruise in Top Gun ), he veers off course and takes pictures of things he's not supposed to see -- civilians being slaughtered. His plane is shot down in a whiz-bang, special-affects laden sequence, his co-pilot and best buddy murdered as he looks on helplessly.

From the first shot, Director John Moore knows exactly what he's doing. The movie has an authentic, gung-ho quality too it, and it's eerily prescient -- the spy satellite and thermal imaging stuff is right out of today's evening newscasts. The Bosnian war and background scenes are authentic and disturbing. The movie moves like a rocket, pushed along by jump cuts, aerial shots and changes in film speed and angles. It doesn't get cluttered up with the usual distractions (remember Pearl Harbor's belabored love interests and other digressions?). And it actually ends right where it should, a minor cinematic miracle these days! Wilson convincingly evolves from an irresponsible snot-nose into a resourceful warrior, pursued by cool, murderous Bosnian soldiers who want to get the film of a massacre he shot from his onboard digital camera. Riegert is snarled in bureaucracy, his efforts to save the pilot complicated by a weak-kneed U.S. government and NATO wussies worried about global politics and diplomatic concerns.

As the onboard Marines restlessly lobby to fire up their Apaches and go in and get him, Wilson dodges and battles the Bosnian army all over the European forests (the movie was shot in Eastern Europe). The ending is pure John Wayne. This is a first-rate war thriller under any circumstances, but given the particular ones raging in Afghanistan, it's going to be a blockbuster.

Realistic

[alen]

I only saw the trailers but it doesn't seem very realistic. Americans never leave their dead or missing on the battlefield. Not after Vietnam. When I was in the army we were taught that we should risk our own lives to bring back the bodies of our dead. To the US Army Rangers it's a part of life. Somalia is an example. Same thing with missing. You search for them until you are sure they are dead and then you bring back the remains.

But it's a good story for Hollywood about a rogue officer trying to do what is right and going against the beauracracy. Americans hate beauracracy and it reflects in our art.

Only 90 minutes long?

[OblongPlatypus]

You say this like it's a good thing, a tendency I've noticed in many reviews lately. For some reason a movie is regarded as too long if it even comes close to the two hour mark. DVD fans will know another side of the issue; director commentaries always talk about the parts they had to slash, and the number of unused scenes only seem to grow.

I understand perfectly well that in many cases a movie can be made too long, making it boring or just too long-winded. But why is a short movie seen as a good thing in itself? If a movie is really good, I'd love to stay in the theatre for three hours, or more. If it isn't good, I'll just leave. I can't tell you how many movies I've seen lately where I wished it would just last longer, and show us more of the story.

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Re:Only 90 minutes long?

[Ami Ganguli]

It depends on the movie. I often walk out of a movie thinking 'why didn't they just cut the last 45 minutes?'. This normally happens when the scriptwriter feels the need to resolve some cheesy plot-line explicitely, rather than just leaving it to the imagination.

On the other hand, the Harry Potter movie was, IMHO, way too short even at 210 (?) minutes. They tried to cram the whole book in and the film ended up being a montage of short scenes resembling a music video with no time for character development. They should either have cut out more of the book, or split it into two movies. The director has already suggested that he may do that with the fourth book, since it's much longer.

I thought this movie was kind of lame....

[neoshmengi]

The action scenes were definately cool, but I think that plot is still the quintessential part of a movie. There were a number of plot weaknesses.

Who was that random sniper guy who keeps appearearing? What a generic villain. How did he survive 5 or six shots from a pistol?
How did the hero survive a whole battalion shooting at him?? *sigh*

What was up with that random serbian guy he befriended? That kid played NO part at all, so why was he even in there?

They should have worked the genocide angle a little more to make the audience even more angry at the heartless enemy. Not just a generic mass grave...

It just goes to show that even the coolest special effects can't make up for a weak plot. Producers should at least try to make the plot a little more coherent.

That's my 2 cents. Feel free to flame if you loved the movie.

on the other hand...

[dpease]

warning: i guess some of this could be considered a spoiler.

I caught this flick last night, and while it was OK, I had a few problems with it.

• 3l33t camera tricks made it hard to watch. The director appeared to think he was making a music video, and not a movie, at times. The quick pans, camera jiggles, and slo-mos were sort of hard to take seriously after a while, and didn't really need to be there IMO.
  
• You'll need to seriously check your brain at the door to believe that Wilson can be shot at by literally hundreds of infantry and dozens of armored vehicles throughout the movie and make it out alive. Yeah, yeah, lots of movies are like this, but Behind Enemy Lines was really egregious. The finale was--well, it really made it appear that this battle was being fought in Fantasyland, not Europe.
  
• Owen Wilson gets love from the press and from moviegoers, and I don't get it. He seems like a smart and funny enough guy, but he plays the same damn character in every movie he's ever in. He's always something of a smart-ass but otherwise a good person. Seriously, if you can differentiate his performance in this movie from, say, his work in The Haunting, you're paying more attention than me. Sure, this movie didn't suck nearly as bad as The Haunting did, but differentiating slightly sardonic hick-sounding unabashed white guys is tough for me.
  

Hey, have a hell of a day.

Re:Realistic

[kerrbear]

Realistic? Hardly.

Fighter pilots that go off mission on a whim? Can you say serious lack of discipline? They get shot down in enemy territory, and our hero leaves his injured buddy out in the open in broad daylight? Then he moves around during the day? This is some of the most idiotic military procedures ever shown. If our military was really like this, Osama Bin Ladin would now be our president.

Of course, our hero is completely impervious to explosions and has the superhuman ability to dodge bullets. And for some reason the director thought that realistic battle action involves shaking the camera around so much that you can't really see what's happening. Saving Private Ryan this was not.

As Roger Ebert says,

[BurntHombre]

"No good movie is too long, and no bad movie is short enough."

That pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject.

Re:Good Movie, couple of issues

[PyroMosh]

Yes, you're absolutly correct on the first count. Only in video games, will missiles do a full 180 and chase something down. The velocity of a missile is just too great to even design it to TRY to track something it's passed. The turning acr would be enormous. Even a shoulder mounted SAM like a Stinger flys at Mach 2.

As for the rescue scene, I haven't seen the film yet, but it isn't nessisarily unrealistic. Remember two key points: 1) The modern helicopter gunship is one of the most formidable weapon systems on the modern battlefiel. They are capable of caryint TOW missiles which will kill tanks, the gattling guns have look-down / shoot-down capability, etc. 2) For a rescue, the rescuing forces would only have to hold off the opposing forces long enough to snatch their target and dust off. Killing the enemy isn't nessisarily required. Pinning him down, or just slowing his advance sufficiently is enough.

Re:Realistic

[stripes]

Then he moves around during the day?

Saving Private Ryan this was not.

Note: Saving Private Ryan had similar problems, at the end for example the German tanks were moving in daylight, that late in the war the US had air superiority and German tanks avoided the day because they would be blown up by air support.

It is just a real pain to film that kind of thing at night (or to look like night), so in war movies lots of stuff that would really happen at night is filmed to be in day. (It was nice that a some of the SPR marches were filmed at night...)