2001, 1 hr 45 min., Rated PG-13 for war violence and some language.�Dir: John Moore. Cast: Owen Wilson (Burnett), Gene Hackman (Reigart), David Keith (O'Malley), Joaquim de Almeida (Piquet), Gabriel Macht (Stackhouse).

Going in, I was expecting B-movie worthy formulaic military hero-rah rah-stuff gets blow'd up-planes go zoom-bullets go whiz fare (I like onomatopoeia), and that's what I got. The filmmakers certainly should do pretty good business, capitalizing on the patriotic fervor of the nation in the current war on terrorism.

Extremely loosely based (same zip code, different neighborhood) on Lt. Scott O'Gradys six-day survival from Serbs after being shot down over Bosnia in 1995, Wilson plays a navigator whose plane is shot down on a routine reconnaissance mission. In the last two weeks of his time in the Navy, Wilson isn't sure of his role in the whole Balkans mess, which isn't unusual since even today no one really knows who to trust.

Hackman is Admiral Reigart, a straight-laced military guy in charge of the American battlegroup, and constantly butting heads with the leaders of NATO while trying to retrieve his pilot.

Behind Enemy Lines is the kind of film with a lot of slow-motion walking where men are told they can refuse a dangerous mission, but no one does.

At least it has Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson, two of the more likable chaps in Hollywood. Both are fun to watch on screen, which kept it watchable in between the herky-jerky camera movements (they should have called it Run Owen Run), action and loud music.

Sure, there's a lot of implausibility, but I still liked some of the action scenes, and another involving a satellite view that was pretty cool (yes, I can say "cool" since this is a 'flick', not a 'film').

The verdict:

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