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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.
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what a waste of bandwidth this is
duffz0r
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Anyone that tried to mod the parent down or refuses to mod it up will be investigated as a supporter of TERRORISM and detained.
How do you post so much with all those cocks in your mouth? Don't the hairy scrotums get in the way of your screen? Just curious.
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 Dog )
*sigh*
That's TOP GUN, dumbass.
From the first shot, Director John Moore knows exactly what he's doing.
Sorry, but if you can't even remember the title of one of the biggest box-office hits of the 1980s starring Tom Cruise, you're not qualified to be a critic of directorial style.
Seriously, after Jon Katz's fiction passed off as journalism stunt, why does he still have a job?
He's a hack writer at best. Come on.
what did your Afghan friend think of this movie?
(I assume he already downloaded it on his commodore which was buried for 5 years)
I encountered the lameness filter.
How ye,how you tire me. But yet still ignite
the fire of my determination. My trolling
grows me feverishly wary.
An open mind?
Are you fucking BLIND?
27 people in Israel are DEAD. Blown up last night and today by separate incidents involving PALESTINIAN suicide bombers. There was also a car bomb last night that fortunately caused no injuries.
It's time to WAKE UP.
Muahahahahah.... 4LL UR JonKatz R B3L0NG 2 US!!!!
Such war movies always propagate violent and harmful solutions to problems.
They make seem violence the best solution for problems but it's always the worst and the last.
This might be just the usual hollywood crap, but hollywood is flooding and brainwashing the whole world with such movies.
We don't need to be surprised when youngesters in palestine or north ireland make violent terror to solve their problems because they just learned it all for hollywood movies.
Therefore I think such movies are very bad and should be banned all over the world.
Even Microsofts high marketshare is mainly based on hollywoods movies because they always show windows and people think that every computer must have windows and therefore buy only computers with windows.
There you see how bad such hollywood movies are !!!
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
This is your good friend Junis from a village 30 miles south of Kabul. I like this movie very much, but the people in my village like "Temptation Island" better. I now shave every day (down with Taliban!) and I have bought a "webcam" for my Commodore. I have also replaced my old Madonna posters with Britney Spears and Eminem and Limp Bizkit posters. Our imam is crazy about Eminem's music! Good day to you, I must now go to continue playing RTCW! On my Commodore!
What is this crap. The movie was horrible.
I guess I don't want to read a movie review by someone who can even wet his pants over a totally unrealistic and obviously forged email from an Afghanistan kid...
But maybe that's just me...
+++ath0
I can see a review for The Matrix or Star Wars - but Behind Enemy Lines? Who cares?!! This is not News For Geeks nor is it Stuff That Matters.
Vote to get rid of JonKatz
After all, he requested that himself.