Behind Enemy Lines (2006)

Blu-ray

In Behind Enemy Lines unhappy soldier Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson) is shot down over Bosnia. Due to the political climate America can't risk going in to get him, so Burnett must use all his cunning and wits in order to survive. Going up against Serbian forces is no easy feat and Burnett's death seems imminent at every turn. Having always had a stormy relationship with his commanding officer Admiral Reigart (Gene Hackman), Burnett sees a whole other side of him as Reigart defies a direct order from NATO and puts together a team to bring him home.

When I first saw that Owen Wilson was going to be in this movie I didn't know how to take it. This guy is a comic actor and as such I didn't know how I would feel about seeing him in a straight up action part. Yet, Wilson is always Wilson and amazingly this whole performance never felt self conscious. I bought that he was this character and I also think that seeing him get a comeuppance of sorts was also a good piece of characterization. It isn't that Behind Enemy Lines is the best war movie that I have ever seen. Rather, it was simply a lot better than I thought it was going to be.

Commentary Tracks
The kind folks at 20th Century Fox have seen fit to put two commentary tracks on this release. One is with director John Moore and editor Martin Smith. The other commentary features producers John Davis and Wyck Godfrey. As usual, I chose to listen to the commentary where the director was present simply because I am fan of production stories. We get these with Moore and Smith but the only thing is they are pretty much relegated to what we are seeing on screen. There isn't much talk of what happened off camera as Moore and Smith mainly tell us a lot about what's happening visually. They explain how certain shots were pulled off, what was computer enhanced and what wasn't, and what the actors thought about this or that scene.

There was a lot of speculation that this movie was made to capitalize on pro-American sentiment after 9/11. Well, anybody who knows anything about movies knows that even under the best circumstances it takes a while to crank these things out, especially a war movie of this sort. Basically, Behind Enemy Lines was a movie that seemed to benefit from timing more than anything else. Our country had been devastated, the nation was banding together and this movie seemed to capture that spirit. How else to explain it almost grossing $60 million at the U.S. box office? That it also happened to be a pretty entertaining film, it wasn't that hard to follow, also probably accounted for why people decided to plunk their good money down as well.

This movie looked pretty darn good on Blu-ray disc. Behind Enemy Lines has enough action and strongly composed shots, that I could see home theater enthusiasts being pretty excited about showcasing this movie in their collections.