One of the bits I like about Netflix is that periodically I get movies I just plain don’t remember putting into the queue. Not claiming any conspiracy–you slap all sorts of “why not?” things into there, and I don’t know about you, but my why-not threshold varies from night to night.
In this case, I found myself watching “Behind Enemy Lines.”
Spoilers, of course. But much as it’s hard to spoil non-organic peanut butter…but that’s a bad analogy. I like peanut butter.
So, it has Owen Wilson starring, which I suspect might have been why it hit my queue in the first place. I suspect I’d probably just finished enjoying Royal Tenenbaums recently and figured, surely. I do know for a fact it wouldn’t have happened if I’d placed it there post, say, I Spy. Owen Wilson is The Navigator; for effect, I imagine “navigator” should be pronounced “na-vi-ga-TOR” with reverb effect sliding into deep bass on the TOR. Meaning, he’s the navigator/radar man part of the Navy pilot team of an F18 flying recon sorties during the Serbian bit of conflict. The Navigator wishes to quit the Navy, because he signed up to be a fighter pilot, dammit, and they’re not bombing anyone, which is a goddamn ripoff. The Navigator is a Man of Action, you see (making Owen Wilson the perfect casting choice…now stop that–you’re thinking, I can tell. Don’t. It’s not worth it) and this has been Seven Long Years of Inaction. Even using the carrier’s steam catapult to kick footballs around and Navy Jello doesn’t make up for that kind of malfeasance.
But all that’s about to change! Admiral Gene Hackman is angered that The Navigator is planning to retire, and sends him and Pilot Deadmeat on another recon mission while the rest of the crew of the aircraft carrier (which is, by appearances, perhaps a dozen strong–everyone’s downsizing these days) enjoys christmas dinner.
The Navigator is fed up. He convinces Deadmeat to alter their flightplan, because he’s switched the radar into Suspicious Ground Activity Detection Mode and has received a reading. Deadmeat isn’t one to say no, so they get some nice digital footage of Serbs Engaged in Suspicious Activity.
This angers Serb Overlord, who promptly sends the word out to the Serbian army’s Designated American Killer (third class). DAK is this dude who looks scowlingly constipated, and is dressed differently than everyone else. He scowls furiously as Deadmeat and The Navigator whoosh overhead, and fires two SAMs after the plane. Flares are ineffective! Slicing left is ineffective! Slicing right is ineffective! Dropping the fuel tank for a big fireball only detours one of the missiles!
Anyway, they eject by a big shattered angel statue, which is a good landmark (this shall be important). The Navigator is fine after crashing through umpty tree branches, which only dramatically bloody his face. Deadmeat parachutes into an open field, which injures his pants terribly. The Navigator makes for upper ground, because the cellphone reception here is terrible, which gives time for the entire Serbian army to converge. The soldiers have to stand around for awhile for Serb Overlord to arrive, look embarassed at delivering some lines, then have DAK (third class) kill Deadmeat. The Navigator’s anguished cry brings the entire Serbian army’s attention towards him–but luckily, they’re astoundingly bad shots, each and every one. (This shall also be important.)
“If you want him dead, send me after him alone!” proclaims DAK. Serb Overlord considers, then forces him to take Ensign Gomez.
Back on the boat, Admiral Gene Hackman is not having a good night. There’s this French guy. Or at least, he’s supposed to be french. Problem is, he’s played by the guy who played Bucho in Desperado. So I spent the rest of the film waiting for The Navigator to whip out a guitar case full of guns (thus raising the believability threshold of the entire affair) but, alas, it was not to be. But anyway, Admiral le Bucho is a prick, for he stymies Admiral Gene Hackman’s every move. Mainly preventing rescue attempts.
At some point or other here, DAK has a clean shot at The Navigator, but because killing him from afar with a rifle would cause him to lose face, he shoots a tree instead, causing The Navigator to slide excitingly down a convenient dam while DAK fires carefully thirty feet wide of him while the camera is shaken to emphasize the intenstiy of everything. At the bottom of the dam, The Navigator apparently teleports, but this is not shown on-screen–it is only implicit in his next apperance at what he thought was to be his pick-up point. What was to be, that is, before Le Bucho blocked Admiral Gene Hackman’s intent.
The Navigator ends up face down in a mass grave while Admiral Gene Hackman scowls furiously at hotwired satellite IR imagery. He is obliged to narrate the test screening audience’s (which was, I have it on good authority, composed primarily of lifetime recreational paint huffers and glue sniffers with meth-powdered popcorn to sharpen the attention span) confused whispers to each other. “What’s going on?” Admiral Gene Hackman demands of embarassed-looking extras. “Is he dead? Why don’t they see him? What’s going on?! Oh, they’re right on top of him! What’s going on? What’s that guy doing? Isn’t he a bad guy? What’s going on?”
The Navigator has escaped his pursuers by a clever ploy, you see. I’m unsure why he did not teleport, but perhaps The Navigator, like DAK, has a code of honor, and would not wish his pursuers to lose face.
The Navigator makes his way into a convenient minefield, which kills DAK’s foisted tagalong just as he’s about to shoot him. A good thing, to–by union bylaws, only DAK is supposed to be able to Kill Americans–he’s Designated by the special jacket, after all. Does The Navigator run in slow-motion through explosions? What a silly question!
The Navigator hitchhikes with some friendly Muslims; you can tell they’re friendly because one has an Ice Cube tee-shirt. None of the rest of them last very long, so they don’t matter–Ice Cube sticks around, though. But first, The Navigator–being the clever sort he is–switches uniforms with one of the Serb Mooks. In another nod to that test screening audience, his ploy is painstakingly explained, first by DAK and Serb Overlord, then by The Navigator pulling off his Serb Standard Issue Ski Mask and making sure to get a good long look behind him at the Serbian army that he left twenty feet behind him. The perfect getaway!
He meets up with Ice Cube boy, in time for Le Bucho’s last bit of foul play and abandonment. But The Navigator does not give in to despair in the end, for he spots the shattered angel statue landmark. (So that this would not cause undue shock in the test screening audience, or confusion if they missed the second statue shot due to faces being buried in paper bags filled with epoxy fumes for a good long draw, Admiral Gene Hackman also explains in an earlier scene that The Navigator’s overall path has been a big circle back towards the crash site.) The Navigator knows that he can find the hard drive containing the reconnaisance footage there. It’s right there in plain site, along with an ejection seat with its beacon.
The Navigator reactivates the distress beacon, which causes consternation back in Admiral Gene Hackman-land. Admiral Gene Hackman has been inspired by just how much of a Man of Action The Navigator is, and promptly puts together the Marine rescue squad, and be damned what Le Bucho thinks! “Every minute that we waste is a minute that The Navigator is closer to being killed!” he says angrily, then proceeds to give a minute pep speech to the marines before letting everyone get on the choppers.
The Navigator spends some time swearing at his inability to free the hard drive. Meanwhile, DAK (third class) is stomping through the forests towards him, another tagalong in tow. Tagalong steps on a landmine, and DAK leaves him behind to explode off-camera. (There was a goldmine of running joke potential here that just went to waste–DAK could have easily ditched half a dozen tagalongs to separate landmine incidents. But, alas.) DAK reaches his position, and draws a bead on the ejection seat that he believes–foolish, foolish DAK!–that The Navigator is cowering behind. But The Navigator does not cower; we know this now.
Helicopters are on the way, led by Admiral Gene Hackman. In a hurry, DAK approaches The Navigator’s hiding spot. But, shock! The Navigator is not there, it is merely his propped up coat and rifle! The Navigator bursts from the snow behind DAK; they exchange shots to little effect from two feet apart. The Navigator hits dead center, but you don’t get to be a Designated American Killer (third class) in the Serbian Army if a little thing like that will slow you down. The Navigator gets shot in the left shoulder, which, in this sort of movie, is equivalent to being missed entirely. There are fisticuffs, and The Navigator kills DAK with a sparkler through the heart. (It was meant to be a flare, I think, but I like my interpretation better.)
At this point, Serb Overlord leads the entire Serbian army to the fray. You might protest that it’s a poor army that consists of maybe thirty guys and a couple tanks–but my rejoinder is that even at those numbers they still far outnumbered the entire crew of the American aircraft carrier. So relatively speaking, it amounts to the same thing. The entire Serbian army opens fire, and is utterly unable to hit either The Navigator (who is standing in the middle of a frozen lake, by the way, with no cover), or the helicopters hovering dead still just twenty feet up in the air. Meanwhile, the choppers mow down the evil Serbs. USA! USA! USA! (It’s pretty dramatic.)
Anyway, The Navigator is about to run to get on the chopper when he stops. Wait, he thinks. I’ve forgotten something. He looks at Admiral Gene Hackman. He looks back at the combination ejection-seat-and-hard-drive-unit. He looks back. He frowns thoughtfully. Did I leave the oven on? he wonders. No! The hard drive!
The Navigator turns around and runs back through a hail of Serbian blankfire, grabs the hard drive, runs back to the helicopters. The audience is supposed to be concerned because there’s a sniper drawing a bead on him, but if there’s one thing the attentive viewer has learned so far it’s that you’re least likely to be shot by a Serbian sniper–and that’s the least likely of a probability curve very much buried in the unlikely end of the spectrum. Quantum theory gives a much stronger probability of all the atoms of your clothing spontaneously teleporting a yard to your left.
Anyway, The Navigator makes it back onto the chopper. Serb Overlord punches the hood of a tank in frustration, wishing he’d given his soldiers live ammunition.
“This is what Deadmeat died for!” The Navigator announces triumphantly, waving the frozen hard drive about. He takes back his letter of resignation from a pleased Admiral Gene Hackman and crumples it up. The Navigator realizes that he was wrong, that he would have plenty more opportunities to be a Man of Action.
A postscript carries the sad news that Le Bucho did have his way, and Admiral Gene Hackman lost his command. This shows the bittersweet nature of true heroism.