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Behind Enemy Lines
2001
On a reconnaissance flight over eastern Europe, disillusioned naval pilot Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson) and his partner, Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht), photograph a scene they were not meant to see. When their plane is shot down and Stackhouse is quickly captured and executed, Burnett must struggle to survive in unfamiliar hostile .. Read more
| Starring | Gene Hackman, Owen Wilson, Gabriel Macht, Joaquim De Almeida |
|---|---|
| Director | John Moore |
| Genres | Action/Adventure, Drama |
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Behind Enemy Lines
On a reconnaissance flight over eastern Europe, disillusioned naval pilot Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson) and his partner, Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht), photograph a scene they were not meant to see. When their plane is shot down and Stackhouse is quickly captured and executed, Burnett must struggle to survive in unfamiliar hostile territory with a cold-blooded assassin and hundreds of enemy troops on his heels. Meanwhile, on an American battleship in the Adriatic Sea, Burnett's commanding officer, Admiral Reigart (Gene Hackman), attempts to negotiate his soldier's return amidst tense political and military maneuvers. Soon Burnett discovers exactly why he's being hunted, making his situation--and Reigert's actions--even more perilous.
Benefiting from Wilson's straightforward performance and Hackman's typically engaging presence, BEHIND ENEMY LINES proves itself with a solid story (loosely based on real-life events) and excellent action sequences. Shot in a cold, icy light, John Moore's film features a nail-biting aerial chase, a tense race across a grenade-filled wasteland, and a stunningly explosive final battle. Wilson, typically cast in quirky comedic roles, is an unlikely action hero who turns out to be the movie's secret weapon. By avoiding excessive macho posturing, BEHIND ENEMY LINES is smarter, more exciting, and better looking than most Hollywood military thrillers.
| Starring | Gene Hackman, Owen Wilson, Gabriel Macht, Joaquim De Almeida, Charles Malik Whitfield, David Keith, Vladimir Mashkov, Olek Krupa |
|---|---|
| Director | John Moore |
| Studio | 20TH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 41 mins Blu-ray: 1 hr 41 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Action/Adventure, Drama |
| Language | English |
| Hearing-impaired | English |
| Subtitles | English |
| Released | DVD: 31 May 2002 Blu-ray: 12 Mar 2007 Production year: 2001 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (3)
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Rising star Owen Wilson takes a break from comedy — Zoolander, Meet the Parents, Shanghai Noon — and here plays a naval reconnaissance pilot who's shot down over Bosnia after inadvertently filming evidence of war crimes. Grisly Gene Hackman is the maverick admiral who battles Nato caution to find his flyboy before the pursuing Serbs get their hands on him. Former commercials director John Moore proves a dab hand at the action stuff — the sequence where Wilson is shot down is thrilling, edge-of-the-seat cinema — but, pyrotechnics aside, the rest of film is less enthralling and comprises Wilson running, stopping, getting shot at, and then running again. This is hardly surprising with such a dull script and characters. Hackman's bad-tempered naval commander in particular is so two-dimensional, he'd disappear if he turned sideways. A shame really because, if the rest of Behind Enemy Lines matched up to the action scenes, we'd be talking four-star material here.
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Old-fashioned war movie propaganda, of the type one might have hoped that Hollywood had outgrown, filmed in an obtrusively ostentatious style that owes more to video games than any reality.
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Most helpful member's review
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17 out of 17 people found this review helpful
Not bad at all..
Good old-fashioned fast moving story - no spuriously inserted 'love story' angle, just straightforward story.
Gene Hackman attempts to get downed pilot out of Bosnia, who is being pursued by murderous gunman. Would have got 5 stars but for the ludicrously unbelievable bullet dodging climax.
Definitely one to watch when girlfriend/wife is on the girls night out, or in revenge for having to sit through 'The Hours'. -
Most recent members' review
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1 out of 1 person found this review helpful
Complete load of drivel
This film is so bad, that I cite it as being the second biggest load of tosh I've ever seen.
I wouldn't mind, but it's a remake of Bat21, which was a seriously brilliant movie. Maybe they didn't show Gene Hackman (ace actor) how bad the plot really was.
For example, we have one sequence where our hero is being followed by what seems to be a mechanised infantry unit, who's guns appear to be able to shoot around corners (how else could they nearly hit someone when there's a hill in the way). Worse still is the starting premise of the film, i.e F18 being shot down by a SAM unit. Unfortunately, the director seems to have ignored the fact that in the two minutes it took to wake up the SAM battery, that the F18 would have been so far away that they'd never have had the opportunity to shoot at it.
Only rent this movie if (a) you've had a lobotomy (b) know nothing about technology and (c) have already exhausted the thousands of other genuinely good movies out there. -
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- Behind Enemy Lines - BLU-RAY Version
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When pilot Lt. Chris Burnett is shot down in a remote area of the Balkans, his commanding officer sets out to rescue him.... -
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On a reconnaissance flight over eastern Europe, disillusioned naval pilot Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson) and his partner, Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht), photograph a scene they were not meant to see. When ... -