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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.
New business-model!
Our car-manufacturing company has developed a new revolutionary business model for making cars.
We give away the cars for free and then we sell services for those cars! If you want to we can clean your car, wax it or you can use some of our other services.
up katz's ass.
hehe
Fuck ALL Arabs and Palestinian cowards. I hope the Israelis run the steets red with their blood and shit on their disgusting, smelly little children. Death to Sand NIGGERS and Muslim FILTH.
what a waste of bandwidth this is
duffz0r
Happy Hannukah, asswipe. Get reamed by niggers.
The sun shines and another open source company will go bancrypt before it has ended, oh joy! :)
Is this a demotion for the katzster?
Does Katz get paid for this drivel? If so, how much? Or do they just trade him the semen of newly pubescent boys?
Top Dog? I don't remember that movie?
I think the Tom Cruise movie you are thinking of is "Top Gun", not "Top Dog." No big deal, but might throw some people off.
I only saw the trailers but it doesn't seem very realistic. Americans never leave their dead or missing on the battlefield. Not after Vietnam. When I was in the army we were taught that we should risk our own lives to bring back the bodies of our dead. To the US Army Rangers it's a part of life. Somalia is an example. Same thing with missing. You search for them until you are sure they are dead and then you bring back the remains.
But it's a good story for Hollywood about a rogue officer trying to do what is right and going against the beauracracy. Americans hate beauracracy and it reflects in our art.
Did he just NOT insult a movie for once? IMPOSTER! Actually whatever you've done with the real Jon Katz please leave him there!
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.
Jon, is this your review, or Junis from Kabul's review? Did Junis see this movie in Divx on his Commodore PC? I'm wondering if he saw the movie and then emailed you this review.
Don't you just love that hard throbbing cock, Katz? You want it up you. I know you do.
Roadkill is yummy.
This whole movie believe it or not, was just a feel good unrealistic thriller with non-convincing disney-like simplicity; a good vs evil a-la star wars kind of basic mentality.
Not only do I want my money back i want my 90 mins back.
And you should want your 1 min back for reading this, along with the other min for reading Jon "I used to feel sorry for this teenage angst dork" Katz review.
and I reviewed it without spoiling the plot.
What A Fucking Ripoff! OI! OI! OI!
If voting could really change things, it would be illegal.
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.
For years now, the common American penis bird has been a staple of every American's daily diet. Whether it be penis bird sandwiches, fried penis bird, or perhaps penis bird under glass (for the rich), we all have penis bird at least once a day. Many Americans have no clue how the penis bird became so important in the pyramid of a balanced diet, so in this article I will attempt to explain its history and why it is so useful.
In the early 1870s, Francis Zefran became the first penis bird breeder in North America. He started his famous Penis Bird Ranch in Canton, OH. At the time, not much was known of the penis bird's nutritional value, but the Penis Bird Ranch changed all of that. Not only did Francis Zefran raise penis birds to sell their colorful plumes (a VERY lucrative business), he also set up the world's first research lab dedicated solely to the study of the penis bird.
The lab found many interesting things. First, it was discovered that the penis bird was actually semi-sentient. Second, the scientists found that the meat of the penis bird was high in protein, vitamin A, vitamin B, and calcium, while low in fat, cholestorol, and sodium. Never before had such a nutritious meal been had without supplement or fortification. The scientists of the lab recommended immediately that the penis bird become a part of every American's daily diet.
When the news of the penis bird's usefulness reached president Rutherford B. Hayes, he was absolutely ecstatic. You see, President Hayes owed a number of favors to Francis Zefran because as I said earlier, the penis bird plume trade was an extremely lucrative business and Mr. Zefran was important in getting RBH elected through a number of monetary gifts. President Hayes immediately asked Congress to pass what we all know today as the Hayes/Zefran Penis Bird Consumption Act.
The act did a number of things to make the penis bird a daily meal, most important of which was the requirement that for every four people in a household, one penis bird must consumed every day. Another thing the act did was create an artificial monopoly for Francis Zefran's Penis Bird Industries. The act stated that the only supplier of penis bird meat in the US would be PBI. As one would imagine, this quickly made Francis Zefran into the richest man in the world. He was soon a multi-billionaire (quadrillionaire with today's inflation). Never before had a single man seen such wealth.
Many challenges were made to the Hayes/Zefran Penis Bird Consumption Act, and several even made it the Supreme Court. It was argued that the act was unconstitutional and went against liberty itself, but once the detractors tasted delicious penis bird meat for the first time, they immediately dropped their cases and followed the law to the letter. We all know today that penis bird is the most delicious meat man has ever known, but at that time, the only meats people ate were pork and beef.
In the early 1970s, though, challenges to the act began again. Many argued that the monopoly given to Penis Bird Industries by the act was in all ways unamerican. The Supreme Court finally agreed, and in 1974, Section II of the act was struck down. This in effect opened the market to competition for all.
Today, Penis Bird Industries is almost no more. Today we have the market leader Penis Bird Meat International facing against Penissoft, a recent startup. Where will the future lead the penis bird market? Only time will tell us, but one thing is certain: penis birds are here to stay!
< )
( \
X
8====D
-klerck
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 know we should all be used to the Hollywood endings that everybody ends up happy, good triumphs over evil (usually US over anybody else regardless of which side is good or evil), but the ending is stupid and unrealistic.
;-)
Besides, the movie really doesn't reflect on all the complex ethnic hatred in the region...
Wait a minute! That never was the purpose of the movie, just to extult US heroism and patriotism. Ok, so I guess the movie does a good job
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.
You say this like it's a good thing, a tendency I've noticed in many reviews lately. For some reason a movie is regarded as too long if it even comes close to the two hour mark. DVD fans will know another side of the issue; director commentaries always talk about the parts they had to slash, and the number of unused scenes only seem to grow.
I understand perfectly well that in many cases a movie can be made too long, making it boring or just too long-winded. But why is a short movie seen as a good thing in itself? If a movie is really good, I'd love to stay in the theatre for three hours, or more. If it isn't good, I'll just leave. I can't tell you how many movies I've seen lately where I wished it would just last longer, and show us more of the story.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
quote:
How can you mix up the GREATEST guy movie of our generation with some lame ass washed-up chuck norris kids movie????? I never really thought Katz was a fool until now.....
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!
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.
Please, Jon, stop being so funny! I just had surgery; jokes like you are dangerous to my health! Tom Cruise in Top Dog, right?
Taco, Hemos: are you guys actually paying Katz for this? This is exactly why I wouldn't pay for slashdot.
Forager
student of animation and the fine arts
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.
"...the onboard Marines restlessly lobby to fire up their Apaches..."
The Marine Corps uses Cobras. The Army uses Apaches.
You stupid fuck.
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
What is this crap. The movie was horrible.
THE OFFICIAL TACO-SNOTTING FAQ
By The WIPO Troll, $Revision: 1.11 $
Why have I been receiving emails from CmdrTaco, in which he seems to be speaking in some kind of code language?
Good Lord. What is "Taco-snotting?"
Ewwwwww. So, can I stop receiving these emails?
I can't stop receiving these emails from CmdrTaco!?
Have you ever been Taco-Snotted?
That's horrible. Does "Taco-snotting" have anything to do with CmdrTaco's "special taco"?
Does Jon Katz get involved in any of this? I thought he was a paedophile, not a homosexual.
No, thanks. I'm already CmdrTaco's boi toi.
________________________________________
READER COMMENTS
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.25 9:14 (#2609574)
try to find a pic of actual "taco-snotting"! fucking funny it would be! so go to gay porn sites day in and day out until you find a man giving another man a blowjob that has jizz coming out of his nose and mouth. by the way, keep up the good work
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.23 12:18 (#2603370)
WIPO, this is getting waaaay old, either drop it or revise it.... there've been no updates for days now...
CmdrTaco
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.22 17:28 (#2600815)
A truly excellent and very humourous troll indeed!
However...
To complete this perverted orgy, fellow geeks Michael, Timothy, and Jamie often join in, dressed in black Gestapo uniforms, jack boots, and leather gloves.
Black GeStaPo uniforms? The GeStaPo (Geheime Staatspolizei - Secret State Police) wore civilian clothes (although there are reports on them occasionally using Allgemeine SS uniforms in occupied territories).
I seriously doubt that perverted individuals like CmdrTaco et al would have the good taste to ever wear the outstandingly beautiful black Waffen SS uniforms! Please update the FAQ accordingly.
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.23 4:06 (#2602610)
Actually, it appears you are both wrong!! Ah ha!! I think our boy WIPO was thinking of the Allgemeine SS uniforms. Waffen SS were grey.
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.21 4:49 (#2594325)
oh yeah, you say you have masturbated only 2 times to this post. well, by the time it takes for me to get through reading it, i usually end up masturbated 5 to 6 times, 10 to 12 if i have the goatse.cx homepage loaded up and am looking at it side by side with the slashdot page. my keyboard, hands, mouse, monitor, the underside of my desk and around the floor under my desk are cum soaked and sticky with the man smell i know and love.
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.21 4:41 (#2594311)
for version 2 you should make a total re-write of the cod...errr...text and add some details about cmdrtaco and the homo-gang's happenings with their coworkers (osdn?) and all of the gay revelry they enjoy and promote. by the way, did i just see cmdrtaco on television promoting the nax hair removal system? i guess after using vaseline in and around his ass he grew quite a ponytail and it had to be removed somehow...ouch!
by TRoLLaXoR on 2001.11.21 3:59 (#2594191)
WIPO, do you notice how few comments you get for anything you write/post/spam nowadays?
-Trollaxor
by sales_worldwide on 2001.11.20 11:53 (#2588488)
You forgot to mention Jon Katz's "docking" games, where he places his chopper head to head with another chap, and rolls the other guys foreskin over his own circumcised end ("docking"), providing him with fantasies of actually having his own forskin
"Making linux GPL was the best thing I ever did" - Torvalds. I'd hate to see the worst thing...
by Fucky the troll on 2001.11.20 11:28 (#2588446)
Woah! When did the WIPO troll get freed? And how the fuck did I miss it?
Excellent FP, sir.
This is a sig virus. Please put me in your sig
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.20 11:04 (#2588407)
omg that is crapflooding material if i ever saw it!!!!!! and u got a first post!!!! whoot to the wipo troll!!!
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.19 9:03 (#2583756)
GW...you know we love every hair on your 27 acre ass... and I, for one, would never do anything untowards your graceful demeanor. And you probably have several friends that would love to help you do the bear dance all over my face if I so much as spelled your name wrong. And you know I'd defend your Constitutional right to defame God in heaven. I'd even help fund your education, should you ever decide to take that route. Hell, I'd buy you a tall tepid bear-whiz beer if you were here with me, right now!
But.
Now go stick your shaved head back down inside the woman's toilet, and just to show there's no hard feelings, I'll jump in the tow-truck and drive right over to help you pull it right out...ok?
thanks
by mark knopfler 69 on 2001.11.19 8:25 (#2583695)
I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU SIR. FOR ONE THING, THE E-MAIL FROM CMDRTACO DOES NOT HAVE ENOUGH GRAMMATICAL AND SPELLING MISTAKES. Let's be realistic here, CmdrTaco usually types with one hand, and since he is shaking from jacking off his aim on the keyboard isn't too good. Those e-mails were a little too well written. Sorry boy, you'll have to do better.
by WeatherTroll on 2001.11.19 8:14 (#2583667)
You should update this to say VA Software instead of VA Linux.
by smackmonkey on 2001.11.19 7:06 (#2583510)
Crackhead moderators: this is +5, Hilarious material.
--
CNN declares War on Islam!
Left-wing America declares War on its Civil Liberties!
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.19 5:40 (#2583336)
This was funny the first 100 times. Now it is getting boring!
by egg troll on 2001.11.18 22:27 (#2582054)
Having masturbated *twice* to this post, I'm still incredibly aroused! Come over for a Taco Snot. I'll be wearing my crotchless Clifford the Big Red Dog outfit!!
For more info check out this
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.18 12:03 (#2580822)
add more links to goatse and to cowboineal's site to make it better. a link to rotten.com would be nice too
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.18 12:18 (#2580832)
and a link to michael's site and to jon katz's site if he has one and homo's site. i dont know what else to say. maybe a few links to phallic.org they have nice penis pictures! a link to the planet quake site or whatever. really make the reader feel this faq really answers their questions. oh yeah, and when you talk about cmdrtaco snotting you, say he brought you to "orgasm after sweaty orgasm". describe it more is all i'm saying. and use more italics and bolding! and when you talk about jon katz shitting or whatever have a link to fecal japan on rotten.com
other wise a great job wipo troll! keep up the good work!
by Wil Wheaton on 2001.11.18 6:41 (#2580438)
Hi. Let's be buddies.. butt buddies.
--
WIL WHEATON DOT NET
by dead_puppy on 2001.11.18 5:33 (#2580342)
Here is an e-mail I received a week ago:
From: malda@slashdot.org
To: puppy_dead@hotmail.com
Subject: were where you last friday?
I thought we where supposed to meet at Backdoor's at 8-ish, sugar-lips? You could've at least told me that you could'nt make it! I was even in my favorite pink skirt for you, honey-cup... next time, you could be more considarite and tell me you cant come... bastard.
--
CmdrTaco (malda@slashdot.org)
You finding Ling-Ling's head?
by Big_Ass_Spork on 2001.11.18 4:53 (#2580300)
I do it wrong
Laying here in the shadows of my room, I squint up at my love. My Ms. Portman. I am sore and tired after fucking her for eight solid hours. My chapped and aching dick is soaking in grits to relieve the pain. She gets on her knees and starts lapping the grits up out of the bowl. She places her beautiful hands on my penis and starts to lick the grits off my achy piece.
Massaging my nutsack she....
WAIT, I DO IT WRONG!!!!
Yanking my dick out of her mouth I throw her to the ground and shove it in to her gaping freshly fisted ass. [goatse.cx]
"OH BIG ASS SPORK!! Fuck my ass, fuck my ass good. DEEPER, my stallion, deeper!! Make a Beowulf cluster of sperm on my back!!"
"Imagine a Beowulf cluster of this baby!"
I DO IT WRONG!!!!
---
All your Sporks are belong to Big_Ass_Spork! What you say?! All your Sporks are belo... forget it...
by j0nkatz on 2001.11.17 22:54 (#2579596)
I just heard some sad news on the radio -- famous queerbait Rob Malda was found dead in his Holland home this morning. The details were a bit hazy, but it seems that he drowned in jizz while Taco Snotting his friend Hemos. I'm sure everyone in the
I wanna Open Source sex so it won't be worth a shit either.
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.15 6:38 (#2567601)
No no no, the correct term for that is "donkey-punch". I have eye-witnessed this amazing eye-popping event demonstrated on unsuspecting hose-monsters by my frat brothers in the past.. .
by AbsoluteRelativity on 2001.11.15 5:31 (#2567457)
The WIPO Troll
Slashdot and the Karma Lottery - News for uber monkeys, by uber monkeys.
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.13 9:27 (#2557632)
Oh, man that's just sick !
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.13 9:03 (#2557604)
TELL ME WHERE I CAN GET AN ANONYMOUS proxy please WIPO Troll. Maybe later i will join you in a snotting at my place.
by vikool on 2001.11.13 7:43 (#2557495)
what is this bull shit,i feel offened that some people feel so so senseless to post stuff like these esp when such a tragic incident has occured
by I.T.R.A.R.K. on 2001.11.11 22:38 (#2551890)
Where the fuck do I sign up?!
- I throw rocks at retarded kids
"Adequacy.org: Where congenital stupidity is not an option, but a requirement."
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.11 21:53 (#2551753)
this shit is hilarious..keep up the good work.
by rockwood on 2001.11.11 21:49 (#2551746)
OMG! That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard! WHo in their right mind would sit down and waste the time to construct such a replusive story. I guess I'll be skipping lunch and dinner today.. and possibly tomorrow also. The game doesn't affect reality. Reality affects the game.
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.11 14:43 (#2550701)
dude, this is crap-flood material if i ever saw it.
duuuuuuuuudddddddddddddeeeeeeeee.
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.11 8:16 (#2550266)
horny_rob_6969@hotmail.com
Ah, so that's what the alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.horny-rob newsgroup is about!
by egg troll on 2001.11.11 5:34 (#2550024)
+5, Arousing
For more info check out this
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.11 4:39 (#2549891)
WINNER>
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.11 4:37 (#2549887)
I love you. Why do you use your bitchslapped account, rather than signing up for a new account to post at +1 before getting bitchslapped by the censors here? I guess I should speak for myself, but I don't want to log out and lose all my slashdot customization properties, nor do I want to lose my 50 karma yet.
by Anonymous Coward on 2001.11.09 9:19 (#2542412)
you fucking rock! right down to the expanded cvs id!
WIPO trolls > linux
________________________________________
J. Wipo Troll, Esq.
Crapflooder Associates
Slashdot.org
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Overall, I thought this was a good movie. I only see a couple of issues: Did anyone notice that the Surface-to-air missiles made more than 1 pass at the F/A-18? I'm pretty sure (correct me if I''m wrong) that most of the serbian's arsenal would not be that sophisticated. I thought most Air to Air & Surface to Air missiles were forward looking, meaning if the target got behind them, it'd lose it's targetting. Second issue, 3 helicopters held off a good 6 tanks, and 30-40 soldiers at bay in the final rescue scene. A little optimistic I would say. But hey, this is hollywood...
I am glad I read the review. I was planning on skipping the movie, thinking it was a childish non-plot movie like Pearl Harbor. Thanks....I might see it today. BTW...the Marines don't use Apache's they use Cobra's. Just another war monger guy here.
Brian L. Simonin Email: brian.simonin@gmail.com Website: https://www.google.com/profiles/brian.simonin
You know why, don't you? It's so the greed-mongers in the MPAA can jam more screenings in and increase their profit margin, after they've jacked the ticket price to ridiculous levels. In other words, you're paying more for less. They also want you to pay again for the second half of the movie...thinly disguised as (put movie title here) II.
You're using her as bait, Master!
Great, now we'll get 30 minutes of ads and trailers.
sulli
RTFJ.
This was by far not a "first-rate thriller". First of all, the camera work sucked, along with editing. It was done by a first time directory who directed commercials before doing this movie and it shows.
Every time the evil sniper comes on camera, the same thing happens. The camera slows down, a few seconds latter some heavy music sucks. Why is it that most movies have to beat into the audience who the evil guy is and how evil he really is.
Every time Burnett radioed for help he didn't it sitting in the open. Good thinking.
Overall the movie was a sub-par.
A group of flight simulator panel display designers from Project Magneta were tasked with making the authentic looking F16 displays for this movie. Thier website is here:
http://www.schiratti.com/bel
There's some comparison shots between the real deal vs. what they came up with. I'd say they did a pretty good job.
The art director of the movie wanted something authentic and not jazzed up as in alot of hollywood flicks.
I have seen this film Mr. Jon Katz has spoken about - it is wonderful. It has been so kick-ass to watch Divx on my COmmodore 64. We have converted the old chicken coop to an Internet Cafe/Media Center - and we have been doing brisk buisness! I have recieved at least 2 Datsun 4x4's and 3 Toyotas in payment for time on the net! Peace Love and Porn from Afghanistan Junis
Internet is Great!!! junis
It practically ruins the movie! In the first half of the movie Owen Wilson sports a shiny perlescent lip gloss that practically glows. That and the crusty base that is literally sloughing off both his and David Keith's faces throughout the picture is a terrible distraction from an otherwise good film.
read more here: http://schiratti.com/bel/
the author writes code for people (and movie studios now <g>) to build home cockpits using flight simulator
working on a 717 cockpit myself
What was the name of that superhero dog that looked like Huckleberry Hound?
Underdog? Or not?
It was the Serbs who executed his partner and were tryig to kill him as well, and not the Bosnians (they actually gave him a ride). I've just seen the movie last night - I remember very well.
Take a look at some other reviews - most said this movie was junk.
For example, Ebert gave it only 1.5 stars
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've seen the trailer, and it didn't make me want to see the film. That aside, it's interesting to note that this was supposed to be released in the movie dumping land known as January, but the release was moved up to make it more timely.
There are arguably better films to waste your time on these days, but if you gotta see stuff blowing up, this is pretty much your only choice for quite a while.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Peter Jackson and New Line did a great thing bringing LOTR in at 3 full spanking hours. Every review says it flies by. A great movie, like that or Apocalypse Now, makes you want it to go on and on
Alex
Jon Katz not dissing a movie for once, how unlike him.
---------
Fuck you, motherfucker. Fuck yous to: Rob "Taco-Snotter" Malda, Homos, Kowboi Kneel, and RMS.
So, we have our Great American Hero fighting the bad Bosnian Army? Which one is it really? As far as I know there were roughly three parties involved: Serbs, Croats and Muslims (Croats with another religion really). The Serbs were mostly depicted as the bad guys by western media, with the Muslims as the major victims. So how about this movie?
Did they get something right or will they just depend on the Good American Audience to be as ignorant about the background as Katz seems to be?
joo are a butt pirate admit it jonkatz you fuck little boys and raghead terrorists we know!!! joo better fess up, penus muncher!
--
$ chown -R us:us yourbase
The action scenes were definately cool, but I think that plot is still the quintessential part of a movie. There were a number of plot weaknesses.
Who was that random sniper guy who keeps appearearing? What a generic villain. How did he survive 5 or six shots from a pistol?
How did the hero survive a whole battalion shooting at him?? *sigh*
What was up with that random serbian guy he befriended? That kid played NO part at all, so why was he even in there?
They should have worked the genocide angle a little more to make the audience even more angry at the heartless enemy. Not just a generic mass grave...
It just goes to show that even the coolest special effects can't make up for a weak plot. Producers should at least try to make the plot a little more coherent.
That's my 2 cents. Feel free to flame if you loved the movie.
$ dict affect
4 definitions found
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Affect \Af*fect"\ ([a^]f*f[e^]kt"), v. t. [imp. & p. p.
{Affected}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Affecting}.] [L. affectus, p. p.
of afficere to affect by active agency; ad + facere to make:
cf. F. affectere, L. affectare, freq. of afficere. See
{Fact}.]
1. To act upon; to produce an effect or change upon.
2. To influence or move, as the feelings or passions; to
touch.
DUH!
Seriously, why is this IDIOT posting movie reviews? Like this is really news for nerds... Or stuff that matters!
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.
I caught this flick last night, and while it was OK, I had a few problems with it.
Hey, have a hell of a day.
Spare me your rationalizations. All I know is, stem-cell research kills a quasi-living four-day-old blob.
Just a side note, this movie was originally slated for release in 8 or so more months. It was rushed to completion and shoved out into studios for 2 reasons. The first being the strike possibility causing a 2-4 month stint of crappy movies where anything halfway decent would be considered a blockbuster. The second, of course, being Sept. 11th.
First of all, the movie is totally technically inacurate for many reasons (anybody who's ever seen combat knows it). I don't even want it to talk about it and I don't have a problem with because it's just a movie. Entertaining movies don't have to follow reality. What I have a problem with is that this movie is just an extension of American murderous propaganda against the Serbs. Unfortunately most dumb Americans learn about history watching movies and CNN. Hey, it's on TV, it has to be true. Just fuck it, I'm wasting my time.
Marines fly COBRAS,not Apaches.
If I wanted to be taken seriously, at least I'd insure my articles are accurate.
When did /. start doing movie reviews too? We are computer geeks, we come to this site to see tech issues argued about over a simple and easy to use medium. Quick wasting the /. space with crap that we could go to E! Online for. Quick wasting our time!
"The movie has an authentic, gung-ho quality too it"
Katz, do you even know what the hell gung-ho really means? Gung-ho means "striving for harmony" which is what pretty much the core leadership model for the USMC Raider Battalions (which started as an experiment on chinese comunist guerrilla operations).
Katz was probably referring to the bastardized version of "gung ho" made popular by the propaganda movies of the period.
As for the movie itself, it rocked. Loud as hell and well worth it. The politics of the movie were disturbing, which added to the overall theme.
One thing that did not make any sense was when Gene Hackman called the aircraft carrier a "boat." In the navy a surface vessel is a "ship," while a "boat" is a submarine (not that it matters, since to a submariner, anything on the surface is classified as a target, hostile or not). Notice that our submarines are built at a place called the Electric Boat Company (General Dynamics, http://www.gdeb.com/) while our surface vessels are built in shipyards (like for example Grumman's Newport News shipyard, http://www.nns.com/).
Still, it rocked. It definitely rocked. I think Behind Enemy Lines took the title from Top Gun for the aerial sequences.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
I have never seen a war movie so butchered. It lacks any substance, i felt empty coming out of the theater. SPOILER - The whole plot is predictable from beginning. Ten minutes after the movie begins you meet the evil franch admiral and the bad guys on the mainland. From there on you know that the good admiral is going to disobey the bad one at some point in the movie. The whole movie stinks of patriotic nonsense (I am american so don't get me wrong) and Hollywood bravado.
Even the actors, which usualy are pretty good to excellent, seemed to be out of synch. The movie gives a kind of artificial feeling and you don't feel like you are at war at all. The movie tries, and fails in a pathetic fashion, to portray the sorrow and fear that is associated with war. Good war movies include Platoon, Kelly's heroes, Tigerland, etc which manage to create a bond between either you and the characters or you and the historic context. This movie does neither. It just plain sucks.
Imperium et libertas
Autocracy and freedom
"If you're looking for anything beyond flashy entertainment, Behind Enemy Lines feels out of whack from the start."
-- Stephanie Zacharek, SALON.COM
"The exhausting obsession with gizmos and gotchas only accentuates a baffling disinterest in the story's emotional crux."
-- Jessica Winter, VILLAGE VOICE
"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."
-- Michael Wilmington, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"Pro forma stuff, so much so that you start to wonder why no fetching femme resistance fighter materializes to help the Americans on the ground."
-- Kenneth Turan, LOS ANGELES TIMES
"An implausible military technology adventure that takes about 10 minutes to get started, then climaxes for an hour-and-a-half."
-- Paul Tatara, CNN
as the top five reviews I have to wonder. Couple that with the fact that Film Threat (with whom I agree about 90% of the time) gave it one star, and the sleaziness factor from knowing they moved the release date up to cash in on the September 11th bombing and I think I will be taking this review with more than a grain of salt :)
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
That pretty much sums up my feelings on the subject.
I have never been a big fan on the moving shaky cam. Ugh. I get literally stomach sick. Me no likey.
Some of the action seens seemed very unbeleivable, especially when Wilson's character wasn't smart enough to stay quiet when his pilot got shot, nor not to use his name (okay, so he "is only human") but can get into a Serb uniform and dress up another in no time.
I have a lot of minor nitpicks but oh well. All in all a good movie. It was very aparent tho that the director started with directing video game comercials for Sega.
Oh and Kick ASS missle doging scene.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Im not up on my military aircraft, but these things were transport helecopters, not two seater attack helecopters (or webservers).
And for the record, I diddnt realy like the movie. I diddnt get at all attached to the characters, and wasent paticularly impressed by the special efects (they were good, but by no means groundbreaking). I have no idea what the deal with they guy in the track suit is all about. I know nothing about either of the two main characters beyond the obvious, and the interesting characters (track suit guy, and the kid) only left me wondering if the writers had any character developement ability whatsoever.
And I kept saying to myself that Hackman should be telling the pilot where to go with obscure golf references. Bat21.. Now theres a good rescue movie.
So the film's two major actors spend their time "complimenting one another"? That sounds great.
"Nice shirt, Admiral Riegart."
"Why thanks, Lieutenant. May I say how much I like your medals?"
Good thing Jon Katz pointed this one out. Many probably thought it was a war film.
4 Paragraphs is considered an acceptable movie review at Slashdot? Jesus. Does Jon Katz get paid for trash like that? If so it easily explains OSDN/VA ResearchLinuxSystems's financial troubles.
I saw the movie on Friday and can honestly say it was not worth the $6 admission. Here are some of the reasons why (please note I'm not a modern war historian or what-not and could be totally wrong on some issues): -at the very end our hero main character is in the crossfire of 3 fully equipped apache helicopters firing all they got at the other side; where we see some 50 soldiers equipped neatly with ak-47s, 3 someodd tanks all firing, snipers galore; and he doesn't even get scratched. You can sum this up in one word: stupid. As he slides in to get the disk with the pictures on it he also nicely takes out some of the snipers with his handgun; stupid how he can take out some people with automatics and he doesnt get touched in the crossfire. -when the two ugly guys that are searching for the american are in the field where he was going to get rescued from they find his old clip; did you see how large that field was? What are the odds of you finding the one and only used clip from the american? -after the assisaniation of the pilot the navigator yells from the hills and they then realize there is another and fire upon the hills; once again our hero is not scaved as we see thousands of rounds narrowly miss him; once again totally unrealistic. -as our hero slides down the old dam or whatever it was the sniper convieniently misses him by inches each time; however the first shot missed to by the same distance; they are trying to tell us this slavic sniper can shoot and miss a moving target just as good as he can shoot and miss a non-mobile target... horrible... -driving to hac isn't it so perfect for the kid on the truck to have an ice cold (presumably) coca-cola? these are just a few of the stupid things about this movie. So the graphics were great... there was one part where the landmines blew up some of the enemies in slow motion and you saw their bodies bend and whatnot... very cool. But if you were planning to see this movie you may as well wait and get it cheaper at the video store. These are my comments not yours - please don't flame :)
mix_master_mike
vafrous
1980's 10,000 round 400 vs 1, nobody can shoot... yadayadayada. I was so mad at the ending it almost ruined the whole movie for me. If you go see the movie leave after they leave his ass in the field with the kid. You'll feel better!
Vote to get rid of JonKatz
After all, he requested that himself.
Warner Brothers, which bought the rights to the first Harry Potter book for peanuts
J. K. Rowling's income from the movie made her the second-wealthiest woman in England. Prior to that, she was third-wealthiest. Good Queen Bess is still in first place of course.
They were following his foot trail. And they would obviously have known he was running and that there was somebody there with him.
As for the sniper scene on the damn, no respectable sniper with that quality of a weapon would have taken a shot in the offhand. All he had to do was lay down, get into a stable position, calculate his range and windage, and slowly squeeze the trigger. Now how hard is that when your prey doesn't know you are there and is sitting stationary? That scene was a bit annoying.
As for the sensational and unrealistic Hollywood effects of the movie, would you really have preferred the realistic scenario in which the highly disciplined pilot doesn't stray from his flight path, doesn't get shot down, and gets out of the military several days after Christmas after being bent over one last time by his CO?
Russian Russian Russian RussianDollSig DollSig DollSig DollSig
I too was kind of shocked by some of the movies unrealistic scenes. Ok, flying off course a major mistake in and off itself is the premise for the movie and it is believable. I knew that was not realistic but it was belivable so the movie was still good.
Owen wilson did a good job in this role actually.
The scene with the SAM launched missiles and them evading and then ejecting were really awesome. I mean I have seen a ton of those scenes before but that missile chase scene was very engrossing and some of the footage for those scenes was plain awesome.
Once they hit the ground the movie starts getting a little silly. They know they are in hostile territory and he leaves his man laying injured in the middle of a wide open field.... NOT! At least if he would have dragged him to some woods and hid him and THEN the enemy army found him it would have seemed better, but that was a dumb movie mistake. The scene where they shot the pilot made me jump even though I knew it was coming.. it was well done.. just not realisitc.
Next You have owen wilson dodging an impossible number of bulletsand explosive tank rounds....... It was a good chase scene one of them would have been okay.
Then you have owen wilson sitting on some sort of broken stone structure. The main pursuer with the nice sniper rifle misses his target that has been sitting still for at least 5 minutes. In the real world if he was sitting in the open for so long that sniper would not have missed, end of the movie.
The pursuit continues and wilson manages to survive in what seemed to be the epicenter of a bunch of mines of some sort (I don;t know the military terminology for waht they were). ANyways it was not realistic after they showed what it did to the enemy soliders.
everything else in the movie is pretty good until the last scene. That last scene had me wishing it didnt happen.
They fly in with a few marine helicopters. There are a ton of enemy tanks and soliders all approaching owen wilson. Then these helicopters pop up, stay in the same place and somehow decimate the enemy for like four minutes. The footage was nice, but I just DONT see how the enemy solders can be such a bad shot that they could not hit these practicaly stationary helicopters for a full four minutes. Oh and whats with the enemy commander sitting there in plain view prancing about yelling in anger and never getting hit while everyone around him dies?
Oh and they happened to see the supa camo'd enemy sniper and shoot him a few moments before he fired?????
That last scene was bad
Overall the movie was great and the footage and way it was filmed were very nice. The camera angles were good (except those damn shaking camera scenes, won't those Private Ryan Esque scenes ever stop??? )
I am a little critical of a few scenes since I know a good deal about military procedure because I have a couple friends in special forces in the army.
Overall.. the movie was fun and they didnt truly spoil it until the end so I thought it was an alright movie.
Jeremy
Did this review get sent from under the chicken coop in Afghanistan?
I never contributed to any /. pools. Yet when I tried to vote on this subject it told me I've already voted. Is it just a slashcode glitch or someone is voting by hacking accounts?
"Just in time" eh?
Pile this up with "The Green Berets" and all the other feel-good hollywood justification of the "infinte justice" mindset.
Doesn't anyone else feel profoundly nauseated by the timing and the content of the current tide of tinseltown slush?
What's next, a Katz bashing of "Battleship Potemkin"? Digital remakes of "Animal Farm"?
Please keep politics out of slashdot
I liked the comment at the end of the Globe & Mail's review: "No doubt Behind Enemy Lines will make all uncomplicated Americans feel proud of their military. That the movie is about an entire army pursuing one dangerous man through the mountains is just one of life's complicated little ironies."
"I thought they were the dominant species..."
"If I had more time, I would have written a shorter book."
;))
Short is definetly good, for any type of artistic piece. The idea is almost always to get across the most meaning in the least amount of time. Readers (or viewer) are inherently lazy and don't have the longest attention spans. That doesn't mean all movies and books should be made shorter, as sometimes that could be the intent of the author as the length of the book could be a metaphor for something happening in the story or parallels something about the characters, but I'd prefer not to see overly long movies and read overly long books (stupid Dickens being paid by the word
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Yeah, I second this opinion... this movie was mostly implausible and very formulaic. It's from the same guy that did "Top Gun" and it follows in that same vein. A much better modern war movie that comes to mind is "Three Kings" which was actually original and realistic at the same time. A movie like "Spy Games" also had lots implausiblities, but it had more of an actual complex plot and characters to follow.
Not that "Behind Enemy Lines" was all that terrible. In a lot of ways it seemed realistic capturing the feeling of regular military life on the ship, and also for what it must be like in a Bosnian territory. The ridiculous implausibilitis always came back though and ruined the realistic credibility. It's already been listed so I won't bother. The instance that grated me the most was where the protagonist is dodging bullets left and right from this highly trained and then with no explanation he's in a entirely different setting just walking around like it's no big deal.
I would say this movie is one of those "dumb pleasure" type movie that you know is totally predictable but satisfies your patriotic urge to see the military kick butt and also at times gave scenes that were realistic enough to let you imagine what it would be like in modern warfare.
So overall I'd give it a 2.5 out of 5. If it weren't for the latest events going on I'd probably give it a 1.
To be honest, I wasn't that impressed with the movie. It wasn't terribly realistic, the plot was a little weak, every character except the pilot was too one-dimensional, and the cinematography nearly made me sick (really).
Did anyone notice how the Serbian Adidas guy at the end got shot like five times by the pilot, and still had enough strength to shoot his sniper rifle, shoot his pistol, and get into a fistfight with our hero? Or how the pilot ran across a snow- and ice-covered lake not once but three times while being shot at by a company of soldiers and a few tanks (and slid on his ass the last thirty feet back to his ejection seat, which was completely ridiculous) without getting touched? Or the real-time six-inch-resolution infrared satellite the admiral was able to commandeer?
The plot didn't have any major mistakes like the ones listed above. It was a good story, but it could have been so much better. In particular, the director could have focused more on the people on the ground fighting the war. Make the movie maybe fifteen minutes longer, have the pilot talk longer to more people, and get us to be sympathetic with (or at least better informed about) one side in the conflict or another.
Excluding the pilot (and maybe Hackman's character), I thought everyone was one-dimensional. Who's the guy dressed in civvies with the big rifle? Just a sniper. Who's the evil admiral that comes in and shuts down the rescue mission? Oh, just some evil admiral. There wasn't any explanation as to why some people were doing what they were doing, just that it was happening. Or if there was an explanation, maybe i was too busy being sick to notice.
Honestly. The director was in love with the hand-carried shaky camera effect and circling the camera around a point of interest (dramatic for a pilot sitting on top of a mountain, but for people standing still having a conversation?). Let me tell you, neither of these are very good for you if you've just eaten an 18-oz. steak and you're sitting in the second row of the theater (big group, opening night, got there late). He was evidently a big fan of the Snatch-style "speed-up, stop, and go" camera shot as well. This was just irritating, as it took away the sense of continuity in the scene.
Wow, this got long quick. Ok, this movie had a chance to be great. Instead, it was marred by an unfulfilling plot and unrealistic effects. I wouldn't say it was a waste of my seven bucks, but I'd suggest waiting until it's out on DVD and renting it.
the coolest club on
1. Ejection parachutes are not steerable parasails; there is no assurance that an ejecting pilot will have the physical capability of manipulating parasail controls. He could be unconscious, have broken arms, etc. Additionally, parasails have higher landing velocities than parachutes, with higher risk of injuries as a result; this would also be contraindicated for a possibly-already-injured pilot.
2. Explosions, even those from little antiperonnel landmines, cannot be outrun.
3. It's an interesting chain of command that places a tinhorn French NATO admiral in apparent command of a United States Carrier Vessel Battle Group. Unbelieveable, even. In real life, there is roughly zero chance that Reichert would take orders from a foreign power; if his commanding officers wanted him to leave the navigator to die on foreign soil, and not make a rescue attempt because of treaty concerns, they'd damn well tell him that personally.
4. Same goes for interference with the rescue once it had been okayed. Those French commandoes aren't even allowed to be on the carrier at all without the CO's permission, but they can commandeer the rescue op without it?
5. Nobody with even a modicum of training would carry an AK-47 sideways like some punk with a 9 in a John Woo movie.
6. The navigator did absolutely everything wrong. His first step upon landing was to run downhill, shouting at the top of his lungs. He did not move his wounded pilot to any sort of cover, but left him lying on the ground next to his *brightly colored parasail*. He seemed to intentionally search out ridgelines to silhouette himself against, and only learned not to sit out in the open on high ground once he'd been *shot at*. Real evasion doesn't entail running full speed from place to place, because noise is going to give you away far more readily than vision. You move *quietly*. Wilson's character either forgot or intentionally disregarded just about every single bit of his training.
7. When was the last time Marines flew UH-1s off of nuclear carriers? For an extraction, they'd be going on H-53s.
8. When facing a hostile force of armored vehicles with large-caliber automatic weapons, the last place you want to be is *hovering* at close range in a helicopter. Minigun or no minigun.
9. The extraction was nothing like an extraction would be. You put a helicopter on the ground, many Marines exit the helicopter, grab the pilot, disarm the pilot, and drag him on board. He would not be *allowed* to return to his ejection seat, which for some reason contained important recording equipment. You would not send one Marine on a rappel to dangle in midair to catch the pilot when he makes a death-defying leap. If the pilot was in contact with enemy forces, well, that's one reason why those A-6s were visible on the flight deck early in the movie; they'd have been used.
8. A 2-star would not ride along on the lead aircraft. If these events played out IRL, *that* is why he'd have lost his command. Not for the rescue, but for the ride-along.
9. Missiles are not evaded in that fashion. If you have a SAM launched at you, it's over in one way or the other in 20 seconds. Missiles smart enough to ignore your flares are not going to home in on the decidedly un-planelike signature of burning kerosene.
That is all. Entertaining movie nonetheless, but *boy*.
It's funny read Katz getting behind a movie that was mediocre at best after he's bashed so many good ones.
The movie was basically an extended version of a Navy recruiting commercial. It also almost managed to make a good political point, that when soldiers, no matter how high their rank, are forced to mix politics into their duties, the result is never good. But that seems almost accidental.
An earlier poster commented on the accuracy of military markings, etc. That may be true, but so much of the rest was inaccurate. First, the main character would have never have left his pilot in the middle of a field with no cover whatsoever. Not even for a minute. Also, he had a bad habit of sitting in exposed places where he could easily be sighted from a distance, by, say for example, a sniper.
The part where the two baddies pick up a spent AK-47 clip and exchange knowing glances almost made me laugh out loud. Like finding a clip from the most prolific assault rifle ever produced in former Soviet-bloc country torn apart for years by civil war would have been significant.
The idea that an admiral, and a carrier group commander no less, would be allowed to put himself in harms' way is also preposterous.
It was almost a funny as Katz trying to pass himself as intelligent.
Top Dog instead of Top Gun
special affects instead of special effects
Bosnian soldiers instead of Serbian soldiers.
Explain again why he gets a paycheck?
Please add.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
I played a lot of Falcon 3.0 and Mig29, and I can say that these SAM missles travel at THOUSANDS of miles per hour. You only need to dodge these things ONCE; they can't turn around, sneak up on you, hide in the bushes, and then appear on your tail again. Your best bet is to head towards the missle, with the missle slightly above you, about 30 degrees, and then at the last instant pull up into the missle's trail; the missle can't possible make such a sharp turn and loses its lock.
Anyone know the type of missle the SAM was that shot the plane down?
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
Testing
--------- AMD 1.4 T-Bird 265 ram pc2100 Geforce 2 mx 400(32mbs) Western Digital 40gig hdd(20 windows, 40 linux) Win
I'm surprised he didn't compare it to the Matrix.
You die too easily.
Now finally we know who Katz is working for. US Army was fighting Bosnian army? Yeah, right.
Hope Katz doesn't think US is fighting Southern alliance and that Bin Laden is a US hero. Well, maybe he is a hero for Katz.
Go watch "No man's land". It's simply better.
1) The movie was terrible, the plot was rediculous. It was watchable until the end, where it went nuts.
2) People in the military don't disobey orders. They pilots wouldn't have left their flight plan without getting orders. They do have communications with the carrier in those planes. Admirals generally don't disobey orders either, that is how they become admirals.
3) Realistic fight scenes were basically saving private ryan style camera shaking, but turning it up and shaking it so that you can't tell what is going on. The sound affects of the fights were very good. The final scene I don't believe the US helicopters were ever hit and for some reason the Serbs didn't use the big guns on their tanks at all until the very end and then just one shot.
4) Why can't they just call it in and get a U2 to fly over again and take more pictures?
or Slashdot's efforts towards selling war to Americans? All other Katz essays have had some connection to technology, or superior mass culture, even if they were laughable. This film hasn't made so much as a ripple in the world, so I can only guess that the purpose of the article is to remind Americans to go see a war film in this time of crazy! politics! to remind themselves of what it's all about - innocent americans in a bad, brutal world out to get them. The Empire thanks you, Katz.
http://www.bigempire.com/filthy/
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
please? my coop needs more computer junis
Internet is Great!!! junis
They were F-18s.
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 thing that really disppointed me was how simplistic all the characters were. There was no depth to any of them (ala Denzel Washington's boxing and jogging scenes in Red Crimson, or Gene Hackman's conceit of having a dog onboard in the same movie) and no surprises. The people in this flick played second fiddle to the special effects and military hardware, which is one of the surest signs possible of a bad movie.
I wouldn't call it timely, considering the fact that it was pushed up from a 2002 release to coincide with 'enduring freedom'.
Capitalising on a war, now that's all-American.
How is this a geek movie ?
The two major actors -- Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson -- are terrific, balancing and complimenting one another.
Wilson: Gene, your rendition of a strong self-confident military commander was so... so "Patton-esque". You were absolutely brilliant.
Hackman: Why, thank you! But, Owen my boy, your portrayal of a solder with keen survival instincts reveals the Rambo hidden in every man. Inspiring, to say the least.
Wilson: You are too kind, dear sir.
It's special _e_ffects not _a_ffects
No one got beat up more often than the mimes of the old west!
I've always wonderd why everyone hates katz, now i know why. What a ridiculous movie, absolute drivil. I had just started to lighten up on americans since Sept 11th, but all i hear 24 hours a day is how fucking great you people are. This movie is exactly why people hate you. Apparently americans can only be killed by shooting them directly in the skull from point blank range... What a horrible movie. Katz is a homo.
Its the semen.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
So Katz's last article, about his little Afghan buddy who dug up his Commodore from behind the chicken coop so he could download movies, and who watchs Baywatch on Kabul TV (at a time when that city was without any electric power), failed to convince you he is a fool?
We are Katz's testbed proofreader
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
In related news today, the Kabul Times has announced that Jon Katz has become a spokesman for Microsoft. Said Mr. Katz: "I liked Windows XP even more than I liked 'Behind Enemy Lines'.Both have the same great level of quality in their design. Go see the movie and buy the operating system, because both bring you the same great user experience you've come to know and love from Microsoft. And using Windows is a lot like running through Bosnia being fired on by snipers."
RANT reason="grammar"
Compliment != complement.
As in, this posting is not complimentary of JohnKatz.
vis-a-vis
Two actors' performances were complementary.
Spelling errers are one thing. Ineffectual command of English is another, especially in someone whose failure to grasp technical details already rankles the population. Do at least one thing well.
/RANT
Supposedly, BHD will bring to light the stark reality of modern combat.
And only a crisp 90 minutes long!
I guess jon katz's attention span has been impared by all that crack he's been smoking (and no, I wasn't a katz hater untill that artical, fyi)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
the movie sucked. i can tell that you've never been in the military. that clown of an NFO did everything wrong. and with all that whining he should have been pushed off the carrier before being allowed to fly. he did everything wrong. run around in broad daylight down the middle of streets and fields and down paths in the woods. the only thing he did well was play dead with all the dead bodies in the trench he stumbled into. the rest of the movie he overacted.
as for the movie. half of it was filmed like the blair witch project. talk about overworked and annoying. but since it wasn't much of a movie they had to use tricks to try and keep your attention. and the ending was a joke. how could all those soldiers and heavily weaponed vehicles miss ONE person AND three helicopters that popped UP into the line of fire? and how did he miss getting killed by ANY of those land mines? do you really believe that he could have also have jumped into the waiting arms of a Marine that was hanging from a helicopter. get a grip. go back to Saving Private Ryan if you want a real war movie. and go back to "Top Dog" if you want hollywood glamour boys who also don't know the military but with better photography.
The review centers around JonKatz seeming to think that his reviews are actually "News for Nerds" here on slashdot. With his reviews usually containing irrelevant opinions that tend to insult the movies that he reviews, this review seems to lack the usual JonKatz edge.
As the online slashdotters restlessly plan DOS attacks on the slashdot Apache server, so they won't have to put themselves through another JonKatz review, Katz is spoiling movie after movie. The ending is pure JonKatz. This is a second-rate review from a nerd who wishes he was Roger Ebert.
Jon is not a real person. He's a character invented by the Slahdot editors to troll their own users. He makes obvious mistakes like this just to piss off people.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
Isnt Behind Enemy Lines just a remake of bat21 (starting gene hackman and danny glover) with hackman on the other end of missles?
Others have already commented on the director's annoying habit to go overboard with shaky cameras, slo-mo/speed-up effects, and rapid zooms. I think it was supposed to feel like war-zone journalism, but it ended up just feeling self-indulgent and forced.
The general premise was indeed quite implausible, and the specifics defy belief as well. I've never served in the military, but I feel fairly confident asserting that if a pilot were shot down behind enemy lines, he would try to find cover rather than sit out in an open field next to his parachute. This goes doubly true in the mountains in winter, if only to maintain your body heat until you can be rescued!
I could go on and on, but I don't want to waste any more of my life thinking about this stinking pile of crap. By the way, I'm not averse to seeing cheesy action movies in general -- this was just a particularly poorly conceived and executed one.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
Nice review. I'll stick with my man Ebert:
h ac k30f.html
http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/wkp-news-
And agree that the movie was awful.
Its actually a butt-dildo, and its name is the iPenis. RMS, ESR, and the entire slashdot crew have already pre-ordered theirs. In fact, Rob Malda (CmdrTaco) has ordered four.
Now, I don't use dildos, but from what they say, it is supposed to bring huge advancements to butt-dildo technology. When they are saying that "this device will really move you to new heights", you may THINK it sounds like transportation, but they're really talking about how supposedly great this butt-dildo is going to be.
Personally, I think its going to be a great device for the slashdot comunnity. It is supposed to interface directly with slashcode, making it a perfect addition to a Friday night slash-fest.
Considering that two-thirds of the slashdot community has AIDS (brought on from some kind of horrific activity), this is an EXCELLENT advancement, because they will stay home with their iPenis, instead of spreading the disease to others.
While its going to support Linux by default, I'm sure someone will hack a driver so that you can use it in Mac OS X. When this happens, there will probably be a story on MacSlash about it, as it is customary to have one every time useless Linux technology is ported.
Nevertheless, I wouldn't buy one. I don't think that you should either.
Oh god I hope this guy keeps posting on all Jon Katz articles! Before this, I never really considered Katz that big a moron.
Not that I've seen it, but this sounds like it could have had the following promo:
Flight of the Intruder meets Bat 21.
It even has Hackmen in a slight role reversal. If Danny Glover were in it all 3 movies would have shared actors in common.
By the way, Marines don't use Apaches, Hueys have pretty much been retired to the reserves, so again, not seeing the movie, the Choppers at the end were probably MH53 Pavelows or more recent Blackhawk derivative PaveHawk
2001? As a POSITIVE example? Are you nuts?
I'm not sure whether 2001 or ST:TMP is the worse example, but they BOTH are movies that the director was so freaking busy being dramatic, that he didn't bother to tell the audience what the heck was GOING ON (Ignoring the gigantic stretches of both movies where NOTHING is going on, except effects-laden, orchestra-backed "DRAMA!!" *finger quotes applied*)
If I hadn't READ 2001, I'd have had NO idea what was going on....
The US Navy should have issued their pilots Serbian cell phones instead of cheap-ass satellite radios. The Serbs use their cell phones everywhere, in terrain where the Navy-issue radios go dead. I can't get that kind of cell service in a major US city, and our infrastructure is still intact.
I feel bad for Gene Hackman--he's a really great actor in the right role. Unfortunately in this loser he plays the part usually given to Fred Thompson.
I guess Owen Wilson can add "action hero" to his credits, now that he's outrun bullets and mines, jumped off a cliff to catch a Marine's hand, and stabbed a bad guy in the chest with a flare. You don't see that kind of stuff very often.
No, not Katz - this one, from The Stranger, a local weekly in Seattle:
Behind Enemy Lines
Two of the greatest American movie actors of this young century, Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson, share the screen in this utterly irredeemable piece of complete and total shit. In case the end of that last sentence didn't spell it out, suck on this: With the POSSIBLE exception of about three minutes of semi-exciting plane-flying footage, THERE IS NOTHING GOOD ABOUT THIS FILM. NOTHING. AT ALL. EVER. AT ALL ALL ALL!!! Ugly as sin, badly lit, poorly acted, logically untenable, and possibly not even written, Behind Enemy Lines is a total fucking travesty in which even the actors' makeup is incompetently applied. I know everyone's desperate for The Royal Tennenbaums, but this Wilson-Hackman pairing is no kind of substitute. Do not see it, please, for the love of all things holy.
I am debating on whether to go see Behind Enemy Lines or not. What I have not seen alot of yall bring up is the fact that this movie is loosely based off the Scott O'Grady story when he was shot down over serb occupied croat or bosnian terriorty and had to be rescued by a Combat Search and Rescue team. Now if yall want to see a movie that will actually be based on historical fact, then I encourage the members of this board who live in NY or LA to go see Black Hawk Down on the 28th of December when it is in limited release in NY and LA. Link to movie info: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0265086 Link to the book: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0451203933/ qid=1007359332/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_7_2/002-4266378-357 7666
THis movie is based off the book of the same title by Mark Bowden. It is the story of the United States failed strategic mission, but successful tactical mission to capture two lieutenants of Somali war lord Mohammed Farah Aidids clan in 1993 in Mogadishu. A total of 100 Army Rangers, Delta Force members, Navy Seals, and Air Force special operations soldiers went in on a raid and killed over 1000 (conservative estimate some ppl claim we killed over 2500) ppl in the next 24 hrs. They lost 18 of their own, and was the last time a medal of honor was given out. Truly a harrowing story about modern warfare, heroism of American sodliers, and the repercussions of a bizarre foreign policy during the Clinton years.
This movie is already being considered for Oscar nods since they moved the realease date up to the 28 to get it in for this year. This movie is a real test for the military and hollywood, after the farce that was Pearl Harbor, with the love story, last year. One good thing abotu this movie is the Military loaned Ridley Scott, the director, a few special operations Black Hawk helicopters as well as Rnager troops this past summer to film it. Also they had advisers to the movie who were at the actual battle, and one of them scored a role in the movie. If this movie is botched up on the editing floor with some sort of love story or something, then we may not see as much cooperation involving the military and a true story in the coming years.
One last thing, the real life battle was the first time America fought members of Al Quaeda and this was over 7 years ago.
To name a few films that looked like just the ticket, then let me down: Mission To Mars, Stargate, one or two of the most recent Bond films...
One I just saw recently that more than met my expectations was Spy Game. I don't know if Katz reviewed already, but it certainly deserves more mention than this movie.
I'd trust Ebert's review before /.'s on a movie, and Mr. Ebert gave this movie an enthusiastic thumbs down. 1 1/2 stars.
Interesting.
I really got the impression that someone who helped get this movie made (director?) was/is a huge fan of FPS games...single player conunterstrike. Half-Life without the aliens...I want to play this game.
fudge
fudged.org
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.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I really hated this movie as I haven't hated a movie in quite some time. I believe the director previously did commercials or music videos or something, and it really shows. Horrendously overdirected and overshot. Super fast cuts and pans. Awful sound cues...
:)
Wilson: "I've served my country for 7 years.. etc"
Hackman: "You don't know the first thing about serving your country!"
Music: Dum DUMMM!!!
And I haven't even gotten to the "PLOT" yet.
*MAJOR SPOILER WARNING**
Our boy has half the Serb army shooting at him, nobody can hit him. Not even the bad ass sniper guy can hit him, when he's perched, stationary on a DAM for cryin out loud... Or how about running through that minefield, hitting all the tripwires. You could actually see debris (ie, shrapnel) flying into him. Not a scratch. Entire minutes tick by where bullets are whizzing right past his head. He only gets detected in the first place 'cuz he yells like an idiot so loud they can hear him hundreds of feet away.
Positive notes: Hackman is decent as usual, and Wilson is watchable. Very cool aerial sequence at the beginning, and some OK action sequences scattered throughout. And of course, it IS a rather timely movie, considering recent events.
Check out Ebert's review, he gave it 1.5 stars. Seriously, this movie is so bad that after a while, I just got numb to the badness of it, and it started to seem almost good again. I think the Katz-bot is playing the underdog again.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
One of the silliest movies I have ever seen was about Swedish ninjas. (No, that's not the silly bit. Not the _really_ silly bit anyway).
The sequence "good guys enter a large room, bad guys each let off an entire (finite, even reasonably sized) magazine of submachinegun fire in the vague direction of the good guys without hitting them once, good guys then fire one shot or throw one throwing star per bad guy and all the bad guys are dead" was repeated about five times.
rant
This is just what the world needs right now when 60% of the world's population couldn't care less what the americanos accomplishing in Afghanistan. Hollywood movies are usually bad, and I can see this one taking it's place among them. If Hollywood ever was to make a movie on the WTC thing, it would probably end with only the bad guys dying in the airliners, all other would survive with reasonably nice hairdos.
A friend of mine was a grunt in both Bosnia and lately in Kosovo, and the stories he brought home on the U.S. Marines weren't excactly flattering (on their part). They would mostly let their euro colleagues take all the shitty jobs. The marines were reportedly extremely nervous guys, probably feeling unsafe for being in a foreign country actually facing armed opposition.
Now, from the same people that will make you believe that dying from a car bomb in Beirut in 1983 was a heroes deed, comes this utterly stoopid movie on yet another modern day John Wayne/Clint Eastwood/Donald Duck/Bruce Willis/Steven Segal type character.
It truly makes my stomach upturned. I'm starting to have funnt feelings on Americans. Please prove me I'm wrong.
Saying a movie ended on time doesn't mean that it hit the 90 minute mark, but rather it ended with just enough questions left open.
/.ers would recognise is the different endings of Blade Runnner.
Too many movies (and, to be fair, other storytelling media) spend too much time wrapping up events after the climax, letting you see what eventually happened to the heroes. I suppose the example most
The hardest part of telling a story is saying "The End".
At last! It sounds like it's an American-made war film that _doesn't_ try to rewrite history.
Film critic: So, Mr. Filmmaker, how do you reply to comments that <war film> rewrites history to pander to US film goers?
Mr. Filmmaker: I don't think it's a film maker's responsibility to be a history text book provider. We just tell stories and entertain.
War veterans from UK, France, Africa, Australia, New Zealand etc.: Oh, OK. That makes it alright then. The fact that I watched many of my comrades get shot and blown up, the fact that I had to kill people, the fact that I still suffer nightmares (all of which are also true for US veterans) can be erased because it doesn't fit with your film company's business strategy or your artistic vision.
Educationalists: Yeah, we don't mind either. Kids always go to the library and look up all the relevant references after they see a film to check for historical accuracy and so correct any misconceptions they have based on the film.
Wow... in watching the ads for this movie on TV, I've dismissed it as another stupid attempt by Hollywood to make a war movie.
This makes me think they actually did some homework: yes, aircraft carriers are called "the boat" by those who work on them. Spent five years on one of those pig boats. More water then you'd ever want to see. The longest trash lines you'd ever want to see also.
"Kick ass and press on" - Capt Leighen Smith, USS America, 1984, Indian Ocean cruise
Realistic? A **one** plane mission? No. One plane photographs, one EW bird watches for enemy radar, two fighter-attack aircraft stand by to jump any radar that turns on, and one AWACS to control the whole mess. Add to that the possible presence of JSTARS to monitor ground activity.
Don't get me wrong, I liked it, but I did spend some time telling my 13 year old how it's really done.
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
When I first saw the TV ads for this movie, it played up the fact that the government didn't want to go after the downed pilot and that Gene Hackman's character was risking his career going after him. I'm sure I saw that ad twice and then never again. The new ads almost completely leave out the 'bad government' parts and focus on the heroic pilot and Gene Hackman. Did anybody else notice this little change in favor of patriotism and against the anti-government story? I haven't seen the movie so I'm not sure which one more acurately portrays the storyline but I thought it was interesting that the studio decided on that change.
I wonder if it'll be awhile before we see any more movies where the government and/or government agents are the Bad Guys? Would a movie like 'Enemy of the State' get made in today's climate?
Just copy and paste to spellonline.com.
Simple.
All you cynical readers out there are quick to make yourselves look smart and blast the movie for being wildly inaccurate. I believe there are two types of movies, realistic movies and entertainment movies. The plot in Toy Story, Star Wars, Star Trek, among countless other movies/television shows have more than a few holes in them. This is an ENTERTAINING movie. Did it feel like I was watching a video game? Hell yeah it did! And I loved all 1 1/2 hours of it. Stop comparing this movie to Saving Private Ryan or Platoon, because from the get go, this movie clearly states its intent to NOT be like those movies.
You let cockfucker JonKatz review this shithole of a movie and you reject my posts on "Band of Brothers"... you are all a bunch of cocksuckers... /. crew: BoB is not for sissies, so don't let JonKatz review or even watch it...
You want a war movie, do yourself a favor: go watch Saving Private Ryan, and then when Band of Brothers comes out on DVD, go buy it. Warning for the
No, seriously, I just come here for the articles.