Behind Enemy Lines (2001 film)
| Behind Enemy Lines | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | John Moore |
| Written by | Jim Thomas, John Thomas(story) David Velos, Zak Penn(screenplay) |
| Produced by | John Davis |
| Starring | Owen Wilson, Gene Hackman, Vladimir Mashkov, Joaquim de Almeida, David Keith, Olek Krupa |
| Music by | Ryan Adams, Don Davis |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release dates | November 30, 2001 |
| Budget | $40,000,000 |
Behind Enemy Lines is a 2001 film starring Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson.
The film is centred around a massacre in the Bosnian war of 1992-1995. Admiral Leslie Reigart's (Hackman) carrier battle group is in the final stages of a NATO peace keeping deployment when the F/A-18F Super Hornet of Chris Burnett (Wilson) and his pilot Jeremy Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht) is shot down by renegade Serbian forces led by General Miroslav Lokar (Olek Krupa). Lokar is committing a secret genocide against the Bosnian people in a no-fly zone that the NATO plane violates and photographs; wanting to avoid being discovered, Lokar has the plane shot down and kills Stackhouse while Burnett escapes and makes radio contact with his superiors.
The resulting attempts to rescue the downed aviator are complicated by political considerations which are enforced on Reigart by his NATO commanding officer Admiral Juan Miguel Piquet (Joaquim de Almeida).
In Bosnia, the lone U.S. pilot attempts to evade Serbian troops and a hired Serb sniper, (Vladimir Mashkov). After dodging Serb special forces, mine fields, and tanks, he manages to contact the carrier. After retrieving photographic evidence of the massacres, he is rescued in a dramatic helicopter rescue mission.
Trivia
The movie is loosely inspired by the experiences of former United States Air Force captain Scott O'Grady, who was shot down on June 2, 1995 over Bosnia. He managed to survive for six days before being rescued. He reportedly filed suit against the producers of this film for defamation of character and making a film about his ordeal without his authorization.
The film, released by News Corporation company 20th Century Fox, features fictional news reports from Sky News, another News Corp asset.
None of the actors playing Serbs was a Serb; the producers said that they hired Croats to instruct the actors in the Serbo-Croatian language since they could not find any Serbs willing to work on the film. [citation needed]
The movie was filmed in Slovakia, not Bosnia. During the shooting of the lakeside scene near the end, the countryside was unexpectedly devoid of snow. To recreate a snowy lake, the film's crew cleared part of a mountain of trees, used molten wax to create the appearance of a lake, and used paper snow to imitate real snow.
Cast Away was spoofed near the beginning of the movie, when Owen Wilson's Character, Chris Burnett, lost a football out to sea. Burnett then yells "Wilson!"
Criticisms
The movie has been accused of being overly patriotic, to the point of altering basic elements of the Bosnian conflict to better reflect on the American government.
Due to the main character's near-invulnerability against impossible odds, many of the sequences in this film can be considered examples of the stormtrooper effect.
See also
- 2001 in film
- Bosnian war
- Behind Enemy Lines: Axis of Evil - The direct-to-video sequel.