The Bosnian War becomes a video game, Gene Hackman turns into a pseudo-John Wayne, and Owen Wilson and Vladimir Mashkov impersonate The Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote in “Behind Enemy Lines,” a pumped-up, flag-waving, outrageously hokey and ridiculous — but sometimes incredibly exciting — war movie.
First-time feature director John Moore won this assignment because of his 1999 SEGA video game commercial for the MTV Music Video awards, and the film looks a lot like a flashy TV commercial. It’s a hard-sell movie, full of zap visuals, kapowie music, big bangs and rock ‘n’ roll. Shot with as much high-tech trickery as the moviemakers can muster, “Behind Enemy Lines” is about a U.S. Navy airman (Wilson), shot down on a reconnaissance flight by Serb forces, trying to run and fight his way to his helicopter pickup zone.
The movie apes all those spirit-raising World War II adventures where a cynical hero who questions the war effort learns the value of teamwork while getting a baptism by fire. As Lt. Chris Burnett, Wilson starts out as irreverent as they come. Flashing the crooked sly-boots smile he also used in comedies like “Bottle Rocket” and “Shanghai Noon,” Wilson makes Burnett a kind of top gun class clown. In the movie’s first 10 minutes he grouses about his lack of battle action, disses the Bosnian War, bats a football off the deck of his aircraft carrier (to the welcome sounds of Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say”) and tweaks Hackman’s ultra-paternal Adm. Reigart by handing him his letter of resignation, effective in two weeks. Stung, Reigart sends Burnett and his pilot, Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht), off on a mission during Thanksgiving, depriving them of a turkey dinner and hoping to teach them a lesson in Semper Fi.
Reigart succeeds beyond his wildest dreams, but he also places the two in such jeopardy that he spends the rest of the movie torn with remorse. When wildcat Burnett suggests drifting over the DMZ line for some spicier spying, they accidentally fly over the site of a Serbian massacre, and fiendish paramilitary chief Lokar (Oleg Krupa) orders the plane shot down and the fliers executed. From hiding, Burnett screams in horror when he sees the injured Stackhouse killed, igniting the mad chase that occupies the rest of the movie.
As Burnett runs across Bosnia, eluding much of the Serb army, a relentless baddie called The Tracker (Mashkov) and what seems thousands of rounds of ammunition, the guilt-wracked Adm. Reigart argues with his superior, NATO Adm. Piquet (Joaquin de Almeida) to try to save his man — something the stubborn Piquet feels may undermine the fragile peace accords and sabotage the imminent withdrawal of NATO forces.
In a mix of loony politics and loonier battle action, the movie cuts back and forth between Reigart’s frustrated campaign and Burnett’s amazing race. As he hot-foots it across Bosnia, the once cynical Burnett meets a succession of colorful or deadly Bosnians (including Ice Cube fan Bazda, played by Marko Ogonda), dances through a minefield, witnesses grisly atrocities and learns the true meaning of buddy-buddy dedication.
Somehow, we know Burnett will change into a stalwart hero from a guy who questions the Bosnian mission, trashes John Denver and smirkingly hands Reigart his resignation. What we couldn’t possibly predict is Burnett’s unflagging stamina and unprecedented ability to race on foot to anywhere in the country within minutes of a scheduled rendezvous point — as well as his spectacular talent (after his initial crash) for dodging and evading any bullet fired in Bosnia from any kind of weapon, even at point-blank range.
The movie is so absurd you almost feel ashamed for enjoying parts of it. And it’s never more enjoyable than in the edge-of-the-seat scene, 20 minutes in, where Lokar’s anti-aircraft crew blast away at Burnett and Stackhouse’s F-18 with heat-seeking missiles. This is a brilliantly shot and edited bravura sequence: the missiles unerringly swerving and chasing the plane while Stackhouse and Burnett wildly try to flip and careen out of harm’s way. But it’s as good as the movie gets. It becomes hard to take Burnett as anything but a maniacally driven action toy, the paramilitary gang as anything but lousy gunfighters running wild, or Adm. Reigart as anything but a cartoon military papa trapped in futile debate with a French appeaser (played by the Portuguese De Almeida).
Moore’s style is a numbing techno-barrage of electronic gimmickry and charnel house nightmare war imagery, backed by a Don Davis score that suggests a disco in hell. Still, the producers of “Behind Enemy Lines” probably caught a lucky marketing break here. The audience may be so primed right now to see a movie like this — with lots of action, black-hearted villains, sympathetic heroes, high-tech optics and a superficial patina of cable TV-style international politics — that “Behind Enemy Lines” could be a big hit. The movie’s very cartoonish simplicity, mixed with the gritty razzle-dazzle of Moore’s direction and the empathy we feel for Wilson and Hackman, helps slam it across.
Hackman and Wilson are unusually good actors for a script as thin as this; you could say the same of De Almeida, Krupa, Mashkov (one of the crazed pair on “15 Minutes”) and Burnett’s shipmates David Keith and Charles Malik Whitfield. Despite the stream of hackneyed gung-ho gimmicks from writers Zak Penn (“Charlie’s Angels”), David Veloz (“Permanent Midnight”) and James and John Thomas (“Executive Decision”), Hackman gives Reigart a veneer of dignity and a sense of remorse. And though it’s clever to cast Wilson as an unlikely action hero, the hip vulnerability he projects gets undermined by the movie’s inane overkill.
There is barely a moment of honest emotion or believable humanity in “Behind Enemy Lines.” It’s always trying to wring your heartstrings or punch you senseless — and it’s so loud you half expect the audience from the theater next door to ask you to turn it down.
Compare “Behind Enemy Lines” to an honest, smart movie about the Bosnian war like Danis Tanovic’s devastating, soon-to-be-released dark comedy “No Man’s Land,” and you realize how slick, silly and strangled by formulas (if undeniably exciting) this and many other American big-studio action fests have become.
Like “Behind Enemy Lines,” they’re lost in their own high-tech no-man’s land: big-sell videos disguised as movies, recruiting poster films full of knee-jerk characters and calculated frenzy.
`Behind Enemy Lines’
(star)(star)
Directed by John Moore; written by Zak Penn & David Veloz, story by James Thomas & John Thomas; photographed by Brendan Galvin; edited by Paul Martin Smith; production designed by Nathan Crowley; music by Don Davis; produced by John Davis. A 20th Century Fox release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:46. MPAA rating: PG-13 (war violence and some language).
Lt. Chris Burnett ………. Owen Wilson
Admiral Leslie Reigart ….. Gene Hackman
Admiral Piquet …………. Joaquin de Almeida
O’Malley ………………. David Keith
Lokar …………………. Oleg Krupa
Stackhouse …………….. Gabriel Macht
Rodway ………………… Charles Malik Whitfield
Tracker ……………….. Vladimir Mashkov
