Behind Enemy Lines

Summary:
On a routine reconnaissance mission flight navigator (Chris Burnett) and his pilot (Jeremy Stackhouse) come across suspicious activity in a no-fly, demilitarized zone. Curious they do a flyover and they take photographs, what they didn’t realize is that they took pictures of mass graves. The Serbians in the area saw the jet and the Bosnian Serb Army commander (General Miroslav Lokar), who is involved in a secret genocidal campaign against the Muslims in the area, and not wanting the graves to be discovered orders the jet to be shot down.
Burnett and Stackhouse land in the Serbian held area. With Stackhouse injured Burnett has to get to higher ground to contact Admiral Reigart for help. In the meanwhile Stackhouse is captured and executed by one of Lokar’s henchmen, Sasha. Burnett, who saw the patrol come, screams when Stackhouse is killed. Realizing that there is another person that knows about the graves out there, Lokar sends Sasha and another Colonel after Burnett. When Burnett get to higher ground he contacts Reigart and tells him what happened, Reigart orders him to go to a certain location. However, Admiral Piquet tells Reigart that the rescue mission could throw Bosnia back into more civil war and therefore orders the rescue mission to be postponed until the extraction can be outside the no-fly zone. When Burnett reaches the designated spot he is told to move outside the zone.
Right after being informed, Burnett notices the Serbian patrol that’s looking for him. When running away he falls into the mass graves that they photographed earlier, in order to not be seen he hides under a dead body until the patrol leaves. Reigart who watched all this on a heat map informs the media of Burnett’s situation. Burnett comes to a road and stops a pickup truck. The drivers offer him a ride and head off towards the town of Hac, which is in the safe zone. However the Serbs, take over the town because they know Burnett is heading there. The Serbians believe that they have found the body of Burnett in the debris after they bombed the town, but he switched uniforms with a Serb militant and escaped.
Claiming that Burnett had been shot by Bosniak forces, they parade the body in Burnett’s uniform around. When Burnett reaches the pick-up spot he watches the chopper, which thought he was dead, fly away. Burnett then decides to head towards where he parachuted to nearby. So he heads off in order to get the pictures to prove what Lokar’s been up to as well as to prove he’s alive. Once he reached his ejection seat he reactivates a rescue beacon which not only notifies Reigart but also the Serbs to where he is.
Not caring what happens to him, Reigart prepares to take a rescue team to Burnett. Meanwhile Lokar sends Sasha and the Colonel alone to kill Burnett but the Colonel steps on a landmine which alerts Burnett. Sasha comes up to the ejection seat which he believes that Burnett is hiding behind. This indeed isn’t true when Sasha reaches the seat, Burnett jumps out of a snowdrift and shoots Sasha several times, but failing to kill him they engage in combat. Burnett ends up stabbing Sasha in the chest with a flare killing him. Right after killing Sasha, tanks and Lokar’s men appear and begin to fire at Burnett, who runs to the Navy helicopter. Just before reaching the chopper he turns back and retrieves the hard drive that contains the photos of the mass graves.
After being rescued, he gives the evidence to Reigart. This evidence led to the conviction of Miroslav Lokar for numerous war crimes, Admiral Leslie Reigart lost command of his battle group and was given a job in Washington, but he chose to retire with the respect and gratitude of his sailors. Chris Burnett, who wanted to resign from duty, decides to stay in the Navy.
Construction: The message is constructed so that the people at home get a renewed sense of hope and faith in the Navy/ Military. For the most part this movie gives you a very real sense of what this situation would be like. Unfortunately in my opinion there were a few scenes where the scene didn’t seem entirely possible. The one that I really seemed skeptical about was when he was in the town of Hac and was running away and managed to dodge every single trip wire while running, another was right at the end when he was about to get into the chopper but ran all the way back to get the evidence. It wasn’t the fact that he went back but the fact that he managed to go through all that artillery fire without being shot or clipped once. To me that seems highly impossible.

Beliefs and Values: The points of view that are shown in this movie are from the flight navigator (Burnett), the Admiral on the ship, the leader of the Bosnian Serb Army, and the man delegated to track down Burnett. The one point of view that I would have liked to have seen would be the people that are stuck in this war torn Bosnia.

Audience: This movie could be interpreted a being just another American war movie with no other purpose than to just entertain anyone who may watch it. If it was released at any other point I may have believed the same but with it being released so close to the 2001 invasion of Iraq makes me a little cautious to assume the easy.

Intent: Behind Enemy Lines was released in late 2001, just around the same time that the Americans were heading off to Iraq. It was directed by John Moore who has done a couple of smaller movie, none of which have been about the wars. The purpose of this movie was to install a greater sense that no matter what the United States Navy will always get their soldier back.

Form: There were several different techniques used. In the scenes where Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson) was running away the camera would be shakier, which created a better sense of realism to the film. Right after Burnett was saved and he got into the navy helicopter there was a wide silhouette shot of the chopper flying into the sunset. This technique has been used in basically every war movie out there and adds the effect of something coming to a close or wrapping up. They also added dramatic music in the tense situations where Burnett was either running or hiding from the Bosnian Army.

My Opinion: In my opinion the movie Behind Enemy Lines, doesn’t relate to the youth from a peace perspective. Overall this movie doesn’t relate to any peace perspective at all. This movie is about saving their man no matter what the cost. Overall I think that it’s a good movie but some of the scenes seem a little unrealistic.

Behind Enemy Lines Movie Trailer