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Review: Behind Enemy Lines
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.
I generally liked it, but I had a few quibbles.
1. Too much use of camera shake. This made it hard to watch in some points, while not really helping tell the story in any way. It also gave me a creepy feeling at one point.... The obviously hand-held camera is following our hero, and I'm wondering: Who is following our guy around with a camera? The shake makes it seem like there should be a person there.
2. Too heavy-handed use of music soundtrack. I don't like being lead by the nose with music telling me what I should feel at every moment in the movie. Silence can be golden. Just watch 2001: A Space Odyssey again, you'll see.
3. The whole theme of hero's doubts about "why are we here" seems quaintly anachronistic after the events of Sept 11. So do the parts where UN officials are bossing around the US Navy. Can anyone imagine that happening today? The world has changed in a short time, and this film is already taking on the feeling of a historical piece.
I liked the movie overall until the end, which seemed too much like an Indiana Jones finish. I served with the US Army under the NATO led IFOR (Implimentation Force) back in 95. From what I saw I was really impressed with the markings on the vehicles, uniforms etc. It looked so much like the former Yugoslavia to me that I stayed to watch the credits. I wanted to see where it was actually filmed. One scene they are in a factory, (I was shaking my head in disbelief) which appeared to be just like a tank factory we were stationed at in Slavonski Brod,Croatia. I am sure there is someone out there who will nit pick the innaccuracies, but at first glance the attention to detail as far as the country and military forces was excellent in my opinion.
From what I've seen of the previews it seems to be a "go team America, bring our boys home" kinda movie, but the methods they use to get there are pretty lame. The special-effects shots look great, but if it's all show and no meat then I'm not interested.
I read another reviewer talk about the main character's adventures by saying "standing on a ridge, making a target of himself, running in the open, etc, etc"? Stuff like that may look good on the big screen but in real life it'll get you an ass-full of lead.
A few random blurbs:
http://www.filmomh.com/r74.htm
http://www.upcomingmovies.com/nomansland.html
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilm/product/film_info/0,3 69 9,2406267,00.html
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/movie-1111144/
troodon.net
1) The generic villain/sniper has a huge sniper rifle with a bipod, yet chooses to try to shoot Owen from a standing position from hundreds of yards away. I guess he's mastered his heart beat, breathing, and body shakes. Well, no, he kept missing.
;), someone says something along the lines of "the terrain is too rough, we can't reach him by radio, and even satellites won't work until he gets to better ground." Uh, unless he's in a cave, no terrain is that rough.. after all, a few scenes later they show a view from a sattelite directly overhead.
2) On the boat, er, aircraft carrier (sorry, navy guys
3) Owen makes it to the one of the RPs (rendezvous point) and radios in. Shortly thereafter he sees the enemy and has to break off radio contact. Gene demands to know where he is. Uh, he's at the RP, moron. Then someone pipes up, "We'll triangulate his position!" How? HE STOPPED TRANSMITTING!
4) Owen is able to outrun, on foot, the combined artillery of multiple tanks, armored vehicles, and dozens of soldiers. Way to go, superman.
5) SuperOwen is also able to be unaffected by and outrun the blasts of multiple anti-personnel trip-mines, immediately after they show someone (with cool CG effects) being splattered by a mine that went off at the same distance away as the ones that are exploding around Owen.
6) The generic sniper-villain uses his bolt-action rifle as an assault weapon to fire at Owen from a few feet away. Anyone who didn't want to die would've used a pistol.
7) Three lightly-armed transport helicopters are able to destroy multiple tanks, armored vehicles, and dozens of soldiers without taking any hits. Those armored vehicles had multiple cannons and heavy machine guns that would've made short work of the helicopters that were just hovering there waiting to get shot down.
8) Hanging the Marine off a rope from the helicopter and having Owen jump and grab his hand was just retarded.
Then there's the plot. If our (I'm an American) military was that undisciplined, we'd've lost our paddle somewhere up shit creek.
But the piece betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how foreign policy is shaped. First, the world we live in is not black and white. More often than not, we're dealing with international problems that have no clean, clear answer.
For example, it's easy to dismiss American Cold War fears of Castro's Cuba. But then, he did ask for and receive assistance from the Soviets in the form of missiles, didn't he?
The Vietnam War was by almost anyone's estimation, a wasteful, stupid blunder of immense proportions. But let us not forget that a large part of the reason the US got involved in the first place was that the Soviets were making advances of one sort or another on almost every continent. They had what the US perceived to be a client state in North Vietnam.
The Soviet Union espoused a form of government that viewed the destruction of capitalism and the bourgeous democracies as a primary goal.
US foreign policy was dictated by the overarching threat of communism. Sure, now it seems a joke - it collapsed from the inside, from its own weight. But just as sabre-rattling from the West scared the Soviets, the US was scared by Soviet threats as well.
Yes, there are other factors at work. Yes, the Soviet Union is now dead. Yes, mistakes are still being made in US foreign policy.
But the September 11th attacks didn't happen because Bin Laden was pissed off about the Vietnam War, or about the Bay of Pigs, or our meddling with Iran. Bin Laden was pissed off because we supported Saudi Arabia, a country whose rulers he sees as morally corrupt.
Our reasons for supporting the House of Saud over the years primarily stemmed from our desire to maintain stability in the Middle East. During the Cold War, the Soviets were trying as hard as possible to exert influence there, in hopes that by choking off the supply of oil to the West, Europe and the United States would become vulnerable.
We utilized balance of power politics, the same thing that Metternich used in Europe to avoid a major war for years. It's not policy driven by right and wrong. It's policy driven by expediency. It's not perfect. Hell, it's barely adequate much of the time.
But I'd much rather trust foreign policy to people who are thinking of overall balances and stability and peace, than people who would rather persue blindly optimistic policy based on idealism.
The track record of idealistic US foreign policy is pretty dismal. Woodrow Wilson got us involved in WWI too late, because he was loathe to go to war. Then his idealism failed at the Treaty of Versailles, because he went along with France's desire to humiliate and punish Germany.
Jimmy Carter was so infatuated with the idea of working with the Soviets for detente, that when they surprised him by invading Afghanistan, he launched a massive arms buildup (yes, Reagan didn't start it - Carter did) and sent the CIA in to support the mujahedin.
So while it's easy to throw rocks, and it's easy to look at history in retrospect, dealing with the day-to-day matters of international relations is a mite trickier.
The UN won't save you from terrorists. Germany won't work to protect American jobs by keeping the price of oil stable. Japan isn't going to keep India and Pakistan from nuking each other. It's a big, complicated, dangerous world out there.
Finally, the argument that Americans are being misled by the government about US foreign policy is a load of crap. American foreign policy aims are well known to anyone who takes the time to read about them.
Foreign policy is a complex topic, and you can't get a grip on it by watching E! Entertainment News. Less than half the eligible population of the US votes. News shows that stick to news get lower ratings than those that pander to the lowest common denominator.
Americans largely don't want to think about international affairs. That is a far more serious problem for the US in the long run than any specific policy blunders.
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