Feature-films are always the most tricky for any director. Darren Aronofsky was forced to ask his family and friends for money to finish his debut “Pi.” Kevin Smith had to enroll in college for the student discount on film in order to finance “Clerks.” Both were well-accepted by critics and audiences alike.
Being financed by Twentieth Century Fox, director John Moore didn’t have to worry about finding money for his debut “Behind Enemy Lines”. He also shouldn’t worry about being liked by either critics or audiences.
The film stars Owen Wilson as Lieutenant Chris Burnett, a F/A-18 flying naval navigator, who’s looking to quit the military and enter the private flying sector. Admiral Reigart (Gene Hackman) isn’t too keen on letting one of his top men leave, so he sends Burnett and his pilot, Lt. Michael Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht), on a reconnaissance mission during Christmas.
Everything seems to make sense so far, but once the pair hop into their cockpit, confusion becomes the audience’s dominating emotion. The plane photographs military in the demilitarized zone, which leads to a pair of surface-to-air missiles being fired at the plane. Stackhouse isn’t quite good enough to avoid both missiles and the pair are shot down behind enemy lines, though which enemy is unclear.
With the plane over southern Bosnia, there are many groups fighting over the region anyway. Burnett believes the enemy to be the Serbs. The Serbian head denies the group belongs to them, claiming the group is part of a rebel outfit. Of course, this is all on the strength of Burnett’s ability to tell between the groups fighting for power.
Co-writers David Veloz and Zak Penn never chose to divulge the information to the audience, hoping we accept the Serbs to be at fault because Burnett said so. “Behind Enemy Lines” is the first film for the duo, leading to questions of which writer did what. Veloz’s last two films, “Natural Born Killers” and “Permanent Midnight” (which features Wilson), are in complete opposition to Penn’s previous work, which includes “Inspector Gadget” and “PCU.” Neither writer seems capable of deciding where this film is supposed to go, leading to a complete loss of interest in the fate of Burnett, almost as soon as he’s shot down.
Cinematographer Brendan Galvin doesn’t help the story, with his flawed camera work. While the hand-held camera technique works for a few minutes as it’s following Wilson over rough terrain, it’s used every few scenes, and never by anyone who can hold the film steady. During one scene where Wilson is running through a street of trip-wires, the camera follows him, but the camera operator jumps over the wires with Wilson, which is reminiscent of the hand-held technique of “The Blair Witch Project.” Included in that same scene is the standard long shot, showing how far Wilson needs to go to escape these wires. As the camera pans over the street, it quickly zooms in on Wilson, but doesn’t quite find him right away, looking more like a home movie than a feature film.
The only saving grace of the film is the performance of Wilson. Perhaps best known from “Meet the Parents” and “Shanghai Noon,” he seems to be as miscast as Saturday Night Live alum Julia Sweeney was in “Pulp Fiction.” Luckily, he manages to shed his comedic image, quickly adapting to the serious movie role, adding in just a pinch of fear to his image as a military officer. Running from his pursuers, getting covered in mud and having to lie in a make-shift grave, Wilson actually seems to live the part of Burnett, despite it’s poorly constructed appearance.
As a two-time Oscar winner, Hackman can never quite grasp the greatness of his previous roles (ex. “The French Connection”), instead appearing in a series of duds in the past few years (ex. “Heartbreakers”). While the admiral is a thinly written part, Hackman doesn’t elevate it, appearing on screen as Gene Hackman acting the part of Admiral Reigart.
The end of the film features the standard Hollywood wrap-up, with a few sentences about the future of each of the main characters. Sadly, “Behind Enemy Lines” doesn’t allow the audience to care enough about the characters throughout the movie to warrant giving either one a future beyond the movie.
While the film is better than some of the other recent military movies (ex. “Pearl Harbor” and “The Last Castle”), “Behind Enemy Lines” ends with the audience confused and wishing Burnett hadn’t survived the plane crash, ending the film an hour earlier.
