‘Behind Enemy Lines’

A gritty survival story comes packaged as a harrowing action tale.   [PG-13]

By: Kam Williams
   Finally, somebody figured out how to make a big-budget film with the manic intensity of Run Lola Run. That 1998 heart-stopper, by German wunderkind Tom Tykwer, revolved around a running redhead’s mad dash to find a missing bag with 100,000 Deutsche marks before the Mafia kills her boyfriend.
   Now John Moore, known for special effects-driven television commercials for SEGA, Adidas and Guinness, has successfully adapted the explosive, concentrated energy of his advertisements to the screen, producing an entertaining feature debut, not that the first-time film director ought to be regarded as an absolute novice when it comes to cinema.

Owen Wilson is on the run from Bosnian troops in Behind Enemy Lines.

   Born and bred in Ireland, Moore got his start as an assistant cameraman to Jim Sheridan, the five-time Oscar-nominee who wrote and directed My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father. Behind Enemy Lines is very loosely based on the ordeal of Capt. Scott O’Grady, whose F-16 was shot down by a Bosnian surface-to-air missile on June 2, 1995, while patrolling a supposedly demilitarized no-fly zone. He evaded Serb forces trying to find him by playing a life-and-death game of hide-and-seek for six days until his dramatic rescue by a squad of Marine helicopters.
   The modest O’Grady, who ate ants to survive, returned home to a hero’s welcome. But he played down the attention, only agreeing to it on the condition that "all this fanfare be in the honor of those men and women who deserve it more and didn’t get it — serving their country, not just the United States but also NATO and the United Nations peacekeepers — those who have suffered a lot more than I; those who are POWs and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, both in wartime and peacetime for their countries. If you can do this, then I’ll accept."
   Forget O’Grady’s humility and his humanistic, all-embracing ideals; Behind Enemy Lines tells his tale as a narrowly American, blatantly all-out appeal to a swaggering, macho patriotism. Our NATO allies are unfairly portrayed as unreliable, if not downright indifferent.
   This fictionalized version stars Owen Wilson as Lt. Chris Burnett, whose F-18 is shot down during a reconnaissance mission by a suitcase SAM launched by Bosnian war criminals. They don’t want anyone to photograph mass graves as evidence of their genocidal atrocities. Wilson ejects from his crippled craft, descending to a dangerous, lawless nowhere land.
   Gene Hackman, co-starring as Adm. Reigart, is at his best as a hard-edged commander who’s soft enough to care about every sailor under his command. Loyal to a fault, Reigart strenuously objects to the Navy’s cavalier attitude about the downed airman. When the initial NATO rescue mission proves to be suspiciously ineffective, Reigart, against orders, decides to mount a second, even though it might cost him his career and politically destabilize the region.
   Meanwhile, Burnett pinballs his way across the unfamiliar region’s rugged, inhospitable terrain, dodging snipers, tanks and automatic arms. Offbeat Owen Wilson, already hilarious in Rushmore, Meet the Parents and Zoolander, delivers a powerful dramatic performance, proving himself capable of handling any material.
   He is already slated to appear next year in I Spy (with Eddie Murphy) and Shanghai Knight, a sequel to Shanghai Noon (with Jackie Chan).
   In sum, Behind Enemy Lines, when approached purely as escapist Hollywood fare rather than as self-serving, revisionist history, is about as riveting as one could ask of the action/adventure genre.
Rated PG-13. Contains profanity and gruesome warfare.