''Behind Enemy Lines'' is a 2001 American
action war film
War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about navy, naval, air force, air, or army, land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle s ...
directed by
John Moore in his
directorial debut, and starring
Owen Wilson and
Gene Hackman. The film tells the story of
Lieutenant
A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a Junior officer, junior commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations, as well as fire services, emergency medical services, Security agency, security services ...
Chris Burnett, an American
naval flight officer who is shot down over
Bosnia and uncovers
genocide
Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...
during the
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War ( / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. Following several earlier violent incid ...
. Meanwhile, the rear admiral commanding the carrier strike group to which he is assigned is struggling to gain approval to launch a
combat search and rescue mission to save Burnett. The plot is loosely based on a 1995 incident involving
Scott O'Grady that occurred during the war.
Released on November 30, 2001, ''Behind Enemy Lines'' received generally negative reviews from critics. It was a box office success, taking in $91.7 million worldwide against a $40 million budget.
The film started a franchise of
direct-to-video
Direct-to-video or straight-to-video refers to the release of a film, television series, short or special to the public immediately on home video formats rather than an initial theatrical release or television premiere. This distribution strat ...
spiritual successors: ''
Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil'', ''
Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia'', ''
SEAL Team 8: Behind Enemy Lines'', co-produced by
WWE Studios.
Plot
During the
Bosnian War
The Bosnian War ( / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. Following several earlier violent incid ...
,
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
flight officer Lieutenant Chris Burnett and pilot Lieutenant Jeremy Stackhouse are stationed on the aircraft carrier in the
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Se ...
. Fed up with the battle readiness routine, Burnett is preparing to leave the Navy, and clashes with his
commanding officer,
Rear Admiral
Rear admiral is a flag officer rank used by English-speaking navies. In most European navies, the equivalent rank is called counter admiral.
Rear admiral is usually immediately senior to commodore and immediately below vice admiral. It is ...
Leslie Reigart. On Christmas, Reigart assigns Burnett and Stackhouse to fly an
aerial reconnaissance
Aerial reconnaissance is reconnaissance for a military or Strategy, strategic purpose that is conducted using reconnaissance aircraft. The role of reconnaissance can fulfil a variety of requirements including Artillery observer, artillery spott ...
mission, which goes smoothly until they spot unusual activity in the
demilitarized zone. Burnett persuades Stackhouse to fly their
F/A-18F Super Hornet off-course for a closer look, unaware that they are photographing
Serb Volunteer Guard soldiers burying massacred
Bosniak
The Bosniaks (, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia (region), Bosnia, today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and who sha ...
civilians in
mass graves. The local
Bosnian Serb paramilitary commander, General Miroslav Lokar, is conducting a secret
genocidal campaign against the
Bosniak
The Bosniaks (, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: Бошњаци, ; , ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to the Southeast European historical region of Bosnia (region), Bosnia, today part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and who sha ...
population, and orders the jet be shot down.
Attempting to outmaneuver Lokar's
surface-to-air missiles, Burnett and Stackhouse's jet is hit, forcing them to
eject. Lokar and his men find the injured Stackhouse, who is executed by Sasha Ivanic, Lokar's personal assassin. Watching nearby, Burnett gives away his position and flees into the wilderness, and Lokar orders his deputy, Colonel Bazda, and Sasha to hunt him down. Burnett radios for help and receives an
extraction point from Reigart, who is forced to stand down after Admiral Piquet, the commander of
NATO naval forces in the region, warns him that rescuing Burnett in the demilitarized zone risks derailing the peace process. Burnett reaches the extraction point only to be informed that he must continue to another location, miles outside the demilitarized zone, in order to be rescued.
Spotting Bazda's patrol, Burnett falls into a mass grave, and conceals himself under the corpses until the Serbs move on. To ensure Burnett's rescue, Reigart
leaks news of the downed jet to
Sky News
Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel, live stream news network and news organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of ...
, angering Piquet. Lokar realizes that the American jet's
optical disc
An optical disc is a flat, usuallyNon-circular optical discs exist for fashion purposes; see shaped compact disc. disc-shaped object that stores information in the form of physical variations on its surface that can be read with the aid o ...
with the incriminating photographs may still be in the wreckage. Heading to the new extraction point, Burnett escapes Serb soldiers through a
minefield
A land mine, or landmine, is an explosive weapon often concealed under or camouflaged on the ground, and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets as they pass over or near it. Land mines are divided into two types: anti-tank mines, wh ...
. Pursued by Sasha, he encounters Bosniak
guerrillas who offer him a ride to the town of Hač, which turns out to be a war zone. After the battle, Serb troops believe they have found Burnett's body, but Sasha recognizes a prison tattoo on the body, and determines that Burnett switched uniforms with a dead Serb guerrilla and escaped. To buy more time to catch Burnett, the Serbs present the corpse wearing Burnett's uniform to the media with his head covered, convincing
NATO forces that Burnett has been killed, and the mission to rescue him is aborted just as he reaches the extraction point.
Realizing why the Serbs shot him down, Burnett remembers a statue of an angel near where his ejection seat landed, and returns to find it. He reactivates the seat's
rescue beacon, notifying his
carrier group that he is still alive, but also alerting the Serbs to his location. Knowing he risks being relieved of command, Reigart prepares a
Marine Force Recon task force to rescue Burnett, in defiance of Piquet's orders. On the way to kill Burnett and recover his body, Bazda steps on a landmine; Sasha abandons him to his fate, and the explosion alerts Burnett that someone is approaching. Sasha finds the ejection seat, but is ambushed by Burnett, who, despite taking a shot in the arm, fatally stabs him with the spike of a
railroad flare. Lokar arrives with armored vehicles and infantry, but is held off by Reigart's task force. Retrieving the optical disc, Burnett is successfully rescued, much to the dismay of Lokar as his crime is now being exposed.
The photographs of the mass grave lead to Lokar's arrest and conviction for
war crime
A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...
s including
genocide
Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...
. Reigart's actions result in him being relieved of command and retiring from service, and Burnett continues his career in the Navy.
Cast
*
Owen Wilson as Naval Flight Officer Lieutenant Chris "Longhorn" Burnett, the navigator who finds himself surrounded in a warzone
*
Gene Hackman as Rear Admiral Leslie McMahon Reigart, Commander of the Adriatic Battle Unit
*
Gabriel Macht as Naval Aviator Lieutenant Jeremy "Smoke" Stackhouse, Burnett's pilot
*
Joaquim de Almeida as Admiral Juan Miguel Piquet, commander of the NATO naval forces
*
David Keith as Master Chief Tom O'Malley, Reigart's advisor
*
Olek Krupa as Serb General Miroslav Lokar, a ruthless Serbian General who was behind a genocidal attack on the Bosniaks
*
Vladimir Mashkov as Sasha Ivanic, Lokar's personal enforcer and sniper
*
Charles Malik Whitfield as Marine Captain Glen Rodway, a Marine Force Recon squad leader aboard the Carl Vinson
*
Geoff Pierson as Admiral Donnelly
*
Leon Russom as Ed Burnett, Chris's father
* Marko Igonda as Serb Colonel Viktor Bazda, Lokar's second-in-command
*
Eyal Podell as Petty Officer Kennedy
*
Laurence Mason as Captain Glen Brandon, a Marine Officer in the Marine Force Recon Unit
* Vladimir Oktasec as Petrovic, the Serbian President
* Salaetin Bilal as Ejup, Leader of the Bosniak Guerrillas in Hač
* Kamil Kollárik as Babić, a Bosniak guerrilla and wannabe rapper whom helps Chris reach Hač
*
Aernout van Lynden as himself
*
Kyle Chandler as Young Naval Intelligence Officer
Production
In December 1996, it was announced
20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the ...
had greenlit ''Behind Enemy Lines'' from
Davis Entertainment based on
Scott O'Grady and the
Banja Luka incident with
David Nutter set to direct.
In December 1999, it was announced commercial director
John Moore had been hired to direct the film as his feature debut with
James Van Der Beek attached to star.
By July 2000, it was announced Van Der Beek had been replaced by
Owen Wilson.
The film was shot at the Koliba Studios in
Bratislava
Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...
,
Slovakia
Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...
and on location in the Slovakian village of
Háj (in the village of Háj there is also a prop of an angel from the film).
was the aircraft carrier featured in the film. Exterior naval footage was filmed on board the carrier. Interiors were filmed on , and on a film set. The release date was originally January 18, 2002, but this was moved to November 30, 2001.
Historical inspiration
The film bears some resemblance to the experiences of former
U.S. Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady, who was shot down over
Bosnia on June 2, 1995. He survived for six days before being rescued by
U.S. Marines. O'Grady, who later became a children's author and motivational speaker, filed suit against both the producers of ''Behind Enemy Lines'' as well as ''Behind Enemy Lines: The Scott O’Grady Story'', a 1998 documentary that
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience.
It init ...
aired on his experience, for
defamation
Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...
of character, accusing the film's producers of invasion of privacy through the misappropriation of his name, likeness and identity, false representation and false advertising, and contending that those involved in both works produced them without his permission, and that the commercial value of his name was damaged by them. O'Grady's complaint indicated that among other things, he was troubled by the disobedience and profanity exhibited by the feature film's main character. O'Grady also accused Fox of using the documentary to promote the feature film and making a film about his ordeal without his permission. The film's characters and events differ from O'Grady's experience: he never entered populated areas, nor did he interact with civilians, and he did not engage in direct combat with enemy soldiers. Also, O'Grady never flew an F/A-18F, but rather an
F-16 Fighting Falcon
The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is an American single-engine supersonic Multirole combat aircraft, multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superio ...
.
[ The case was settled out of court.
]
Reception
Box office
The film made $18.7 million in its opening week in the U.S., landing at the #2 spot and was held off the top spot by ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. It is the first novel in the '' Harry Potter'' series and was Rowling's debut novel. It follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who dis ...
''. ''Behind Enemy Lines'' eventually grossed $92 million worldwide, of which $59 million was from North America. The budget was estimated to be $40 million.
Critical response
''Behind Enemy Lines'' received generally negative reviews from critics. Review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
website Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
gives the film a score of 36% based on reviews from 132 critics, with a weighted average of 4.8/10 and the site's consensus stating "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." Metacritic
Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
has assigned the film an average score of 49 out of 100 based on 29 reviews from mainstream critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore
CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data.
Background
Ed Mintz, who ...
gave the film a grade "B+" on scale of A to F.
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
gave the film 1½ stars out of four, likening it to a comedy: "Its hero is so reckless and its villains so incompetent that it's a showdown between a man begging to be shot, and an enemy that can't hit the side of a Bosnian barn."
Sequels
''Behind Enemy Lines'' was followed by three direct-to-video spiritual successors. ''Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil'' was released in 2006, ''Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia'' was released in 2009 (this film was co-produced by WWE Studios) and ''SEAL Team 8: Behind Enemy Lines'' was released in 2014.
Television pilot
The Fox network ordered a pilot episode of a series loosely based on the film in February 2017 for consideration as part of the network's 2017–18 television season. Fox chose not to order further episodes after the pilot.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Behind Enemy Lines (Film)
2000s action drama films
2000s action war films
2000s American films
2000s war drama films
2001 directorial debut films
2001 films
20th Century Fox films
American action drama films
American action war films
American aviation films
American war drama films
Behind Enemy Lines (film series)
Bosnian War films
Davis Entertainment films
Films about shot-down aviators
Films about the United States Marine Corps
Films directed by John Moore
Films produced by John Davis
Films scored by Don Davis (composer)
Films set in 1995
Films set on aircraft carriers
Films shot in Slovakia
Films with screenplays by Jim Thomas (screenwriter)
Films with screenplays by John Thomas (screenwriter)
Films with screenplays by Zak Penn
Bosnian War in fiction