'Behind Enemy Lines? laughably, glaringly awful

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"Behind Enemy Lines"|ret||ret||tab|

Directed by: John Moore|ret||ret||tab|

Starring: Owen Wilson, Gene Hack-man|ret||ret||tab|

Rated: PG-13|ret||ret||tab|

Sure, the millennium started off with what promised to be the most awful film of the next 1,000 years, "Battlefield Earth," but less than two years later, a rival comes calling. |ret||ret||tab|

When I say "Behind Enemy Lines" is laughable, I'm not just trying to be de-scriptive. Terry (my wife, who knows more about movies than anyone I know) was cackling throughout, and I laughed out loud on a number of occasions. |ret||ret||tab|

Mostly it's the writing that's utterly horrible, but director John Moore, who comes to feature films by way of television commercials, adds his own absurd flair with the overuse of "shaky cam" shots, annoying snap zooms and a pretentious editing style that add up to one of the most hideous visual experiences to come along in quite a while. |ret||ret||tab|

Gene Hackman is one of the great screen actors of the modern age, and to see and hear him deliver this drivel is downright painful. I'm sure he was paid well, and I have to keep reminding myself how great he was and what great dialog he got to perform in his last film, "Heist," written and directed by David Mamet.|ret||ret||tab|

Hollywood is famous for its trends, so it's no real surprise that the basic story here is much like the current release, "Spy Game," not a great film itself but compared to "Behind Enemy Lines" it looks like "Citizen Kane."|ret||ret||tab|

Owen Wilson plays Chris Burnett, a hot-shot pilot (all pilots in films like this are "hot-shots") who gets shot down while performing a rogue mission over Bosnia. He then is tracked by a Bosnian agent named "Tracker" who is apparently (like everyone else with a gun in Bosnia) a really BAD shot. |ret||ret||tab|

There's one scene where dozens of soldiers with munitions of all sizes fire at Burnett and somehow manage to miss him entirely. It plays out like a spoof, but it's completely serious. |ret||ret||tab|

Gene Hackman is Admiral Leslie Reigart, Burnett's commanding officer, who is champing at the bit to organize a rescue mission to retrieve his young charge. |ret||ret||tab|

The trouble is, in yet another horribly, glaringly clched circumstance, Reigart is being blocked by a stodgy NATO admiral who refuses to let an operation go forth because it will upset the critical peace talks which are now under way with the Bosnian Serbs. |ret||ret||tab|

Unless you've never read a comic book or seen a bad TV drama, you can probably guess what happens. Yes, Reigart decides to buck the system and get his boy back, come hell, high-water or mindless melodrama.|ret||ret||tab|

Some of the technical wizardry featured in the film serves as big time head-scratching material. |ret||ret||tab|

In what looks like a bad video game, Reigart is able to see representations of Serb troops looking through a pile of dead soldiers and Burnett lying still amidst the corpses. The fact that he's wearing an American uniform doesn't seem to tip anyone off.|ret||ret||tab|

"Behind Enemy Lines" is ostensibly based on the events surrounding pilot Scott O'Grady who was shot down over Bosnia, hid out living on grass and rainwater and was rescued by Marines in 1995. |ret||ret||tab|

But any similarity to real life is entirely missing from this film. Burnett prances around Bosnia looking for his next photo op and the only thing that saves his life is the aforementioned fact that none of the people pursuing him seem to be able to use a firearm with any degree of accuracy. Even the landmines manage to miss this ultra lucky G.I. |ret||ret||tab|

This character actually makes Rambo seem plausible.|ret||ret||tab|

I'll be truthful. Most of the time I get in free to movies; therefore I couldn't ask for my money back. But this movie was one of those experiences where I wanted to demand that 106 minutes of my life back. |ret||ret||tab|

It's a completely dreadful picture. I can't wait to see it again on DVD with a roomful of cynical movie lovers like myself ... |ret||ret||tab|

(Jim Wunderle works at Associated Video Producers and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.)[[In-content Ad]]