20.12.2009 ~ Behind enemy lines

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Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:17:03

During my late teens and early twenties I had a habit most didn't understand. At the time I was passionate about screen-writing and was laboring through a third full length screen play, often desperate for little moments of inspiration. The habit in question fed that need, albeit at an odd vector - I'd watch movies I hated ...

WTF?

So why watch shite when you could watch some of the myriad of classics that have enriched that medium? Dunno! Sometimes it was to understand what I didn't like, perhaps in an effort to avoid the same mistakes. Maybe it was mental self-mutilation. The movie that fed the itch most was Roland Emmerick's Independence Day, an action romp that manages to 'riff' off every successful sci-fi movie from the last sixty years. Friends still use quotes from that mess to rise my blood pressure!

And now for the main event

Enter 'Behind Enemy Lines'. This Owen Wilson / Gene Hackman vehicle about a navigator of a downed F-18 Super Hornet jogging around war torn Bosnia as he curses into tactical radios, wallows in muddy pools with decaying corpses and dodges a surprisingly small number of landmines, all the while being chased by an AWP wielding guy in a funky blue tracksuit and his large cadre of angry Serbian soldier buddies. It's said that it was loosely based on the experiences of Scott O'Grady, a US F-16 driver who got a medal for being shot down over the same country.

And what's so wrong with all of that?

I'm all for playing small dramatic conceits to maximise tension and get the viewers hearts racing. I can also tolerate goofs. But when the dramatic conceits are no longer small and are required to be goofs then my blood/rage-ahol balance gets upset!

To achieve the premise of the title, the aircraft our intrepid hero guides needs to come down. To inject some drama into that it should logically be shot down. Some fun could have been had with a cat-and-mouse overlapping SAM defense umbrella approach (guns and different classes of missiles all reaching out to touch).

But that would involve realism. Instead the writer opted to latch a pair of never-ending, fairy-tail seeking missiles which ignore regular counter-measures yet lust for fiery explosions on the ground ... Words cannot express how fucking stupid I find the reliance, by an engaged crew, on exploding drop tanks to decoy a locked SAM! After what seems like 15 minutes of dodging and weaving (boring real-life weapons could only have made a single pass) the remaining missile scores a hit. I'm going to take the special effects as an indication that the SAMs proximity fuses fired, detonating the warhead and shredding the Hornet and the still functioning rocket motor just happened to continue its path, ploughing into the stricken bird than think some 'shot-gun/rocket' combo was used...

It can only get better ...

Now grounded and having watched his pilot get executed, Owen Wilson clears a hill while a fusillade of 7.62mm, 50cal and 23mm rounds ignore the incline (and all the rock and dirt that would entail) and pass horizontally past his person. But it looks good I hear you say! Yes, yes it does, but imagine for a moment that his goal is that hill crest and his reward is temporary safety. He runs, rounds crack past, dirt is thrown up by large caliber impacts. Bullets arch closer the nearer he gets. Then there's that second of uncertainty (because it could revert back to being a show about Gene Hackman delivering righteous anger from his carrier group). But Wilson makes it, rolls over that crest and accomplishes that quick respite. A lost opportunity painted over with fantasy bullets.

The show continues, mundane encounters embiggened by explosions (most thankfully not the fire mortar variety that plagues most hollywood productions) until we reach the finale. Having defeated the AWP wielding blue tracksuit guy and triggering his long ejected seat homing beacon (had this been researched the writer would have found that the seat beacon stays with the pilot once the parachute has been deployed ... so we'll mark it as another conceit) our hero waits for his demise at the hands of the amassing Serb armor.

The reaper's scythe appears to be dropping until a trio of Bell 212 helicopters in Marine Corps livery ascend from their cliff face cover and quickly engage. Yes. Two transport helicopters carrying bolt-on weapons spitting 5.56 minigun fire and FFAR rockets go barrel to barrel with a Soviet era light armor unit. No concealment, no cover, no clever tactics. A real life response from the ground forces would have cleared the skies in less than a minute. Yet through all the bullet impacts and exploding snow our fallen hero finds sanctuary hanging off a rope from the third helicopter and they all fly into the sunset.

Yes. I'm not even commenting on the stupid 'grab the rope from the helicopter' moment.

All bad?

There were a number of things from the production I rather enjoyed. Kudos to the boys behind the explosions - pretty damn realistic! The camera work and lighting were fantastic (not being sarcastic here, the style reminded me of 'Children of Men', and that's a good thing). The jarring slow motion takes almost work, they're sooo close but they're missing something I can't quite put my fingers on...

Fall out

Boy scout action hero / former F-16 crasher Scott O'Grady would later sue the makers of the movie claiming he didn't swear as much as the Owen Wilson character and never disobeyed orders. Bless! Someone really really should have told him that the movie was more a remake of Gene Hackman's BAT-21 than an action laced re-imagining of his sorry tale.

Added to the list

So what have I taken from this? Well, for starters, Behind Enemy Lines gets added to my "I hate you and want to understand why" list. I'm also going to want to rewatch BAT-21 and take in some of Gene Hackman's older works. And I'm going to have to see Owen Wilson in a more redeeming role. Maybe something with puppies...

Tags: 09, aircraft, military, movies, rant, war, weapon.

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