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Film Review by John Demetry
Wilson's adventures come complete with "Macguffin" - reconnaissance footage of genocidal war crimes committed by the Serbs. That Macguffin - the "whatsit" good guys and bad guys fight over in genre films - actually serves here as genre critique. Not only the Serbs, but also Hollywood action films divorce moral scrutiny from mass murder. First-time director John Moore's frequent visual-sonic bursts of imagination, and his idiosyncratic casting of indie-oddity Wilson as an action-film lead, evidence genuine artistic creativity amidst genre conventionality. In those elements, Behind Enemy Lines accesses and provides perspective for the contemporary mood. It reveals the influence of the most politically astute and thrilling hip-hop. Moore pays the debt when a young Croatian, wielding a rifle and wearing an Ice Cube T-shirt, surprises Wilson with a rendition of the Chuck D-scribed "Public Enemy No. 1." It's a yo!-bum-rush-the-show moment. Moore and Wilson's character connect the guns-or-art struggle against ethnic cleansing by one group in Europe with another in the good ol' U.S. of A.
The techno-style score and montage that opens the film challenges audience perception of modern military technology while disarming typical movie heroics; it introduces Moore's appropriately askew perspective. Moore applies that perspective to Wilson's apathetic flippancy: "Don't be cynical," he whines at an officer. Wilson gets laughs, not through his character's wiseacre remarks, but from his spoofing of slacker privilege. Wilson's fuck-it-cuz-I-can attitude gets him trapped in enemy territory. On his last reconnaissance mission before resigning from service ("Give me a war I can understand," is his reason for leaving the military), he elicits enemy fire by breaking a cease-fire treaty. Moore's images of Wilson's plane dodging a heat-seeking missile convey the dread of the situation: You can't escape responsibility for your actions. That's what Wilson's character hadn't taken into account. Just before the missile hits the plane, Moore freeze-frames a shot of Wilson. Upon impact, Moore details the systematic collapse of the airplane's interior in slow motion. Moore's suspension of time takes action-and-consequence account of movie thrills. Moore takes responsibility for movie action. His direction and Wilson's performance make that responsibility thrilling. Moore's intention to excite the audience's sensual sensibility coincides with the development of Wilson's political sensitivity. The conflict between Hackman, who wants to save Wilson despite the treaty, and a foreign officer, who wants to sustain the treaty despite Wilson, establishes the story's loaded premise: morality vs. policy. The story supports, as a friend put it, a "ra-ra" American standard of value. Moore's cinematics, however, are more complicated.
They see him and they see the Serbs, but they can't see the dead bodies - they give off no heat. Contrasting this limited perspective with Wilson's experience, Moore exposes action movie and media simplifications, while visually expressing Wilson's revelation. He now has a war he can understand. Moore jettisons spatial congruity within the action sequences and within the narrative. The usually aggrandizing helicopter shots of a protagonist on a hill become humbling. In the midst of this discombobulating moral uncertainty, Wilson's character grasps for moral grounding. Moore's isolated images reverberate powerfully. Parachuting from his destroyed plane, Wilson takes in the awesome sight of a colossal statue of an angel. Wilson discovers that the other side of the statue's face has been blasted away. Moore punctuates the visual realization with a percussive beat on the soundtrack. Critics who hail Behind Enemy Lines for its "patriotism" or bash it for its "jingoism" ignore the difficulty of resolving those Hollywood (and political) conventions - the ones critics usually support or ignore out of commercial connivance. Those critics feign sensitivity in their complicity with the rote media response to 9/11. They still don't know jack about film or pop or art, much less politics. Moore's honest expression clarifies those confusions. The sweaty-palm suspense of the trip-wire sequence moves from anticipation to climax in the slow-motion image of a Serbian soldier being blown away - collateral damage humanized. That image - like so many others in Behind Enemy Lines - complicates critical labels and enriches pop political discourse. Behind Enemy Lines is a small victory worth "ra-ra"-ing about. |
Owen Wilson is Behind Enemy Lines
Gene Hackman plays Admiral Reigart who sets out to save the downed pilot 
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