We swell the rolls here at
Shared Darkness as time and inclination permits. Ergo, this review of
Behind Enemy Lines, originally published upon its theatrical release in November of 2001:
Behind Enemy Lines
sails along on the sheer surface thrill of its let’s-play-war hook, a
satisfying piece of giddy-up entertainment that raises a few passing questions
about the American “cowboy mentality” as applied internationally before
ultimately deciding it’s a lot more fun to simply eat your action movie cake
than try to have it too.
After a dismissive meeting with his commanding officer,
Admiral Leslie Reigart (Gene Hackman), Lieutenant Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson)
and his partner take to the skies of
Bosnia
in their F/A-18 Superhornet jet. Bored with a routine holiday reconnaissance
mission, they veer off course, heading into an off-limits demilitarized zone
after spotting something suspicious. They are shot down, and his partner is
soon dead. Once down, Burnett’s adversaries include a dogged assassin named
Sasha (Vladimir Mashkov) and the bureaucratic insistence of NATO Admiral Piquet
(Joaquim de Almeida), whose command supercedes Reigart’s and whose agenda has
less to do with high profile rescues that might upset various military factions
and more with the stability of the Bosnian ceasefire accord.
Ergo, at first there’s no special ops team swooping down in
Black Hawk helicopters; Burnett is instead charged with making his own way
through dangerous fields and forests to the rally point of Hac, a fictional
Muslim resistance city (never mind that this later turns out to be a hellish
war zone, either a catastrophic failure of American intelligence or
storytelling). Reigart, of course, wants to go in and help his pilot at any
cost. But is he willing to risk subverting the chain of command and pay the
consequences such a decision will entail? Ummmm… have ya seen the trailer?
As far as these sort of rescue pictures go, Behind Enemy Lines, which angles to be
the official Mountain Dew “X-Treme” entry, does pretty well. Even if the film’s editing and
handheld camerawork seem to often work against each other and jittery techno
music bumps jarringly up against a traditional score by Don Davis, the bullets
whiz around you in glorious Dolby surround sound and things get blowed up good,
with everything building to a satisfying if unrealistic climax.
Another feature debut of an acclaimed commercial director
(in this case John Moore),
Behind Enemy
Lines manages to avoid many of the pitfalls of similar bows due mainly to a
well-executed if functional script from David Veloz and punch-up maestro Zak
Penn, who receive screenplay credit on James and John Thomas’ original story.
The narrative, goals and what hangs in the balance are all simple to grasp and
follow; it’s
an entertaining case of get-out-of-the-way moviemaking. Of course,
having two pros like Hackman and Wilson certainly doesn’t hurt either. And if
it’s a hint of their chemistry in the upcoming
The Royal Tenenbaums, that’s not a bad thing at all.
(20th Century
Fox, R, 106 mins.) 
