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Behind Enemy Lines (2001)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:127
Fresh:46
Rotten:81
Average Rating:4.7/10
Consensus: The plot for Behind Enemy Lines is more jingoistic than credible, and the overload of flashy visual tricks makes the action sequences resemble a video game.
Runtime: 1 hr 46 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
US Box Office: $58,767,833
Synopsis: 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.... 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. [More]
Starring: Owen Wilson, Gene Hackman, Gabriel Macht, Charles Malik Whitfield
Starring: Owen Wilson, Gene Hackman, Gabriel Macht, Charles Malik Whitfield, Joaquim de Almeida, David Keith, Olek Krupa, Vladimir Mashkov
Director: John Moore
Director: John Moore
Screenwriter: Zak Penn, David Veloz, John Thomas, James Thomas
Producer: John Davis
Composer: Don Davis
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Reviews for Behind Enemy Lines
Eight years is enough distance for Hollywood to deem [Bosnia] a suitable venue for battlefield derring-do, turning suffering, destruction and genocide into mindless spectacle.
You get the feeling the filmmakers didn't want to make anyone think too hard about what's going on here behind the scenes of the main storyline.
John Moore delivers exactly the movie you would expect from a director of a Sega ad.
First-time feature director John Moore masters not only the second-by-second intensity of the action sequences and the bleakness of the physical and political landscape.
A thrilling action picture for anyone who enjoys getting their auditory and visual senses assaulted, and their nerves absolutely wrecked.
The whole thing falls apart thanks to Burnett's ridiculous attitude ... His reaction to the insolence from above is insulting.
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.
Moore ... has fallen prey to the 'Look what I can do now that I'm a movie director with a big budget' syndrome.
This baby comes equipped with all the bells and missiles. Given the standard-issue plot, it's about all it can be.
The pop-soundtrack bombast of the too-infrequently somber Behind Enemy Lines ... sometimes reduces a mediocre pursuit movie with capable action to 'Rockin' Bosnia.'
Directed by first-timer John Moore on the strength of his work on a Sega game ad, which may tell you everything you need to know about its visual sense and narrative nonsense.
Put into the context of a real world at war, the movie seems impossibly shallow.
'Oh no, what will happen to Tom Cruise!' -- that might have worked. 'Oh no, what will happen to Owen Wilson!' just doesn't cut it.
Former cameraman John Moore, now director, proves you can win total military support and spends piles of money and be a storming, braying, by-the-book hack.
If you're looking for anything beyond flashy entertainment, Behind Enemy Lines feels out of whack from the start.
Like a good soldier, it does get the job done and in an efficient -- some would say simplistic -- way.
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