And so it’s not too strange that the fairly enjoyable film, Behind Enemy Lines, is a little like Spy Game, Enemies at the Gate, Saving Private Ryan and well… every American war movie you’ve ever seen. Positive-American war stories inevitably seem to tell the same stories. I’d prefer old Roadrunner and Coyote antics to Wilson being chased through Bosnia. If you’ve really got to see it, wait till the video/DVD release. My recommendation is to skip this film on the big screen. Hollywood needs to learn to not always play to the MTV audience. It is not a bad film from the aspect of objectionable content. The f-word is used twice and there is a sprinkling of profanity. There are two scenes that are extreme and the PG-13 rating should be observed. There is no sex in “Behind Enemy Lines,” and the violence is mostly staged. After Burnett is rescued and he climbs into the helicopter, the enemy stops shooting. There is more, but I will conclude with the end of the film. He runs out onto a highway during hot pursuit and is picked up by a truck playing American music. They show our hero sliding down a very dangerous concrete slab, but they never show him reaching the bottom.
Burnett, after first exposed by the enemy, can outrun machine gun and tank fire. Stackhouse is injured and Burnett leaves him in an open field while he goes to radio for help. Burnett walks around after he is shot down trying to find his friend by yelling for him. Here’s a testimony to some of this film’s silliness: Lt. The film mocked military preparedness more than it seeks to inspire a modicum of patriotism. Almost any episode from TV’s “JAG” will give you a better story. It almost seems like from that point on that Burnett is in “Pierce Brosnia” instead of Bosnia. They get shot down and begin the process of avoiding capture and exposing the Serb’s secrets. They veer off course and deliberately go into the demilitarized zone when something unusual shows up on their radar. To help overcome his boredom, Burnett and his pilot Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht) are sent out on a reconnaissance mission. Reigart offers to keep his letter for a week and encourages Burnett to reconsider. He has turned in his letter of resignation to Admiral Leslie Reigart (Gene Hackman). In the first few minutes we learn that our poor 7-year veteran has become bored and wants to resign.
They are currently on patrol in the Adriatic Sea during the peace talks in Bosnia. Lieutenant Burnett is a flight navigator on the U.S.S. Don Davis’ score and Brendan Galvin’s cinematography added really nothing to this over-hyped flic. Director John Moore includes lots of action, but no substance. This was just plain silly and remarkably brainless-even by Hollywood standards, helping to give a new definition to the phrase “the dumbing down of America.” Studios should have focused more on the plot and less on trying to beat “Black Hawk Down” to the theaters. I imagine that 2Oth Century Fox is hoping that we will overlook the obvious, skip the comparisons, and just simply check our brain at the door. O’Grady and Lieutenant Chris Burnett ( Owen Wilson).
There is however a huge difference between Capt. It is his story that has inspired the film “Behind Enemy Lines”. I still can remember listening to his story of the extremes that he went through to hide in a hostile environment. Captain O’Grady demonstrated great training and survived tremendous odds by avoiding capture. He was the hero that helped make Americans proud of the teamwork that exists in the military. He evaded capture by Bosnian Serb forces for six days before his rescue June 8 by a Marine Corps search-and-rescue team. Captain Scott O’Grady’s F-16 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile south of the Bosnian city of Banja Luka.