Friday, November 30, 2001

‘Behind Enemy Lines’ deemed ‘feel-good’ entertainment for Americans
By Jane Sumner
Dallas Morning News

“Behind Enemy Lines” had been set for wide release on Jan. 18, but, Twentieth Century Fox says, high test screening scores convinced the studio to open it seven weeks early.

Audience reaction to the film and its trailer led Fox domestic distribution president Bruce Snyder to term it “the ‘kick-ass’ movie of the year” and Fox vice chairman Bob Harper to exult that “it’s ‘feel-good’ entertainment for Americans.”

What Fox didn’t point out is that the change of date beats Columbia’s military actioner “Black Hawk Down,” slated to open wide Jan. 18, to the box-office punch.

The studio also failed to report that it sent two of America’s most watchable actors — veteran Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson — to war without a script.

In the story from the fraternal screenwriting duo of James and John Thomas (”Predator”), a Navy pilot, at odds with his C.O., is shot down over enemy territory in an unidentified Eastern European country.

Because he strayed and documented genocide while on a reconnaissance mission, Lt. Chris Burnett (Wilson) is pursued by a secret police enforcer, a tracker and ground troops.

Back at the carrier, Admiral Reigart (Hackman) decides to set aside geopolitical rules and launch a renegade rescue mission to save the lone navigator.

Debuting director Tom Moore got the nod after producer John Davis saw his stylish adventure/chase commercial for a SEGA video game system on the 1999 MTV Music Video Awards.

That may be why the scenes where ground-to-air missiles are tracking Wilson’s and Gabriel Macht’s F/A-18 Superhornet jet are so thrilling.

But it also may be why so much of the explosive action seems unreal. And since when does hunted quarry walk down the middle of open fields?

Most of the shoot took place on locations near the Slovakian capital of Bratislava. The action scenes are set against the Carpathian Mountains, but oddly, the script fails to take much advantage of one stunning set — an ice lake with a 40-foot statue of an broken-faced angel.

In comedy, Wilson’s quirky voice and wry delivery work to advantage. Witness “Shanghai Noon!” In “The Minus Man,” he made a fine spooky psycho, but as a running action figure, the multi-talented Texan seems less at home.

Especially since screenwriters Zak Penn (“Inspector Gadget”) and David Veloz (“Natural Born Killers”) give him mostly oaths to utter, while two-Oscar-winner Hackman, surely the Navy’s oldest admiral at 71, gets rank dialogue.

Exterior carrier scenes for the $60 million movie, made with the cooperation of the U.S. Department of Defense, were filmed aboard the USS Constitution and the USS Carl Vinson. The ship’s interiors were shot on stage at Bratislava’s Koliba Studios.

Test screening reaction to this so-called “feel-good” war film isn’t the only thing that’s curious. What makes the MPAA think that a movie in which an injured American gets shot in the head at close range merits a PG-13?

—Jane Sumner
Dallas Morning News