Some spoilers
The premise of the movie is interesting enough. An American navigator, Burnett, is shot down "Behind Enemy Lines" in Bosnia. Because of political considerations, he cannot be easily extracted, and has to make his way home on his own.
The movie starts slowly, with some pretty standard character building, painting Burnett as a likeable, wise-cracking but somewhat unruly Navy navigator. We then get a little bit of very far fetched action as the navigator's F-15 tries to dodge incoming missiles (by the way Hollywood, SAM missiles do not do 180 turns - that's strictly for cartoon time) and then perhaps the most interesting 20 minutes of the film just after the aircraft is shot down. You actually feel tense as the bad guys approach Burnett's hiding prone figure.
However, after that it just gets plain silly. Burnett dances his way through mine-fields, dodges sniper bullets, and climbs to the top of mountains and back while most of the Serbian army tries to eliminate him. What might have been a tense psychological combat between Burnett and his assailants is thwarted by caricatures of brutish and stupid bad guys stumbling over themselves, followed closely by America's inept NATO allies.
And as for the ending... puhleeze!! The Admiral himself leading the rescue mission? Helicopters flying in formation into the setting sun? Whose idiot idea was that?
3/10
The premise of the movie is interesting enough. An American navigator, Burnett, is shot down "Behind Enemy Lines" in Bosnia. Because of political considerations, he cannot be easily extracted, and has to make his way home on his own.
The movie starts slowly, with some pretty standard character building, painting Burnett as a likeable, wise-cracking but somewhat unruly Navy navigator. We then get a little bit of very far fetched action as the navigator's F-15 tries to dodge incoming missiles (by the way Hollywood, SAM missiles do not do 180 turns - that's strictly for cartoon time) and then perhaps the most interesting 20 minutes of the film just after the aircraft is shot down. You actually feel tense as the bad guys approach Burnett's hiding prone figure.
However, after that it just gets plain silly. Burnett dances his way through mine-fields, dodges sniper bullets, and climbs to the top of mountains and back while most of the Serbian army tries to eliminate him. What might have been a tense psychological combat between Burnett and his assailants is thwarted by caricatures of brutish and stupid bad guys stumbling over themselves, followed closely by America's inept NATO allies.
And as for the ending... puhleeze!! The Admiral himself leading the rescue mission? Helicopters flying in formation into the setting sun? Whose idiot idea was that?
3/10