My Thoughts on “Behind Enemy Lines”
Foreword:
This was originally written and posted on DeviantART on Wednesday April 13, 2022. I’m sorry, I apologize, I couldn’t watch Terminator Zero on Netflix to write a review of it 😞, that same message came on saying that Netflix does not recognize the household that my device is in. So, I guess Netflix didn’t get rid of their password sharing restrictions and start allowing it, it’s still in place. The only way you can watch Netflix without being blocked and that dumb message from coming on when you click on your profile is if you have your own account.
If you’re using someone else’s account like we have with my aunt’s, then you have to update the household by sending them a text or an email to confirm or whatever. That’s too much of a hassle and I didn’t feel like doing it the other day. So, I ended up watching Pepper Ann on Disney+ instead. At least Disney+ doesn’t have any restrictions on password sharing, Netflix is the only streaming service that does that, I don’t know why. I don’t why they thought it was good idea to do that when a good percentage of their viewer base watches their service via password sharing so you just shut out a good chunk of you viewer base. No wonder Netflix lost a lot of viewers and subscribers for awhile. There were other reasons too, but that was one of the biggest ones.
I genuinely thought that Netflix got rid of their password sharing restrictions and finally allowed anyone to use their service regardless of whether they had their own account or not. That’s why I was able to watch Rebel Moon – Chapter Two: Curse of Forgiveness and review it for this blog (as well as my DeviantART page) because that stupid Netflix Household message didn’t come on, and it just let me through like normal. I got excited that I was finally going to be able to review all of those Netflix project that I wrote down on my list of things to review, but this latest visit to Netflix put a damper on that excitement 😕. So, now I know I’ll have to go through that same rigamarole of sending a confirmation text to my aunt so that we can approve of my device and allow me to watch Netflix on there if I ever want to watch anything on Netflix to review for this blog.
This whole thing threw a monkey wrench 🐒🔧 into my plans for this week. Originally, I was going to watch Terminator Zero and then write a review of it and have that be my final post for January, and then I was going to repost my Behind Enemy Lines review and have that be my first post for February. But, because I was unable to access Netflix this time around due to the password sharing restrictions, I had to completely shift my plan. So now, I’m reposting my Behind Enemy Lines review today (Tuesday January 28, 2025) and having that be my final post for January, and then I’ll either review Terminator Zero as my first post for February (I can get past the password sharing firewall or if that message doesn’t come on at all) or repost my Inuyasha reviews, and have one of them be my first post for February. One of those two, I’ll see how it all pans out.
It is actually fitting that I’m reposting my journal from DeviantART about Behind Enemy Lines and its sequels, since one of the sequels is called Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia 🇨🇴 and Colombia 🇨🇴 has been in the news lately. Donald Trump has been antagonizing Colombia 🇨🇴, threatening to start a trade war with them and impose sanctions on them simply because they refused to accept the undocumented Colombian migrants 🇨🇴 that Trump had deported and didn’t allow him to fly military aircraft carrying the migrants over Colombian airspace 🇨🇴.
Yes, Trump did move forward with his mass deportation plan, that is yet another campaign promise he is delivering on unfortunately 😞, and he is sending ICE agents around the country to round up as many undocumented immigrants as they can and then shipping them out of the country in military aircraft. He is using military assets to carry this insidious plan out. Now, Latinos all over the country, including those who voted for Trump for some reason, are now fearing for their lives as they’re afraid to go to work, to go to church, to send their kids to school for the fear that they might get rounded up next.
And for those asking, no, they’re not just targeting dangerous criminals that shouldn’t be allowed in the country, they’re targeting all undocumented immigrants, even the ones that keep to themselves and are just here for a job and to feed themselves and/or their families, the ones that keep the economy going. They’re not just targeting undocumented immigrants anymore, they’re targeting any immigrants legal or otherwise, like for god sake they tried to arrest a Latino man ♂︎ who was a US military veteran 🇺🇸. He was a US citizen 🇺🇸 and had served his country with honors, and was being detained by ICE agents and getting ready to be deported simply because he had the wrong skin color. That caused so much outrage, especially amongst the military veteran community, that ICE was forced to let him go.
But, not everyone who was unlawfully detained was as lucky as him. A lot of them got deported anyway without a single trial in court. Whether Trump’s mass deportation plans are sustainable or whether he’ll go even further is yet to be seen, but these deportations are already having a negative effect on the economy. Grocery prices are going up because the agricultural sector is collapsing due to these undocumented workers not showing up to work. Egg prices 🥚 specifically (remember when this was all about egg prices 🥚?) are skyrocketing, but just because of the mass deportation thing but because of the ongoing Avian flu epidemic that’s killing all the chickens 🐓 that produce the eggs 🥚. But the mass deportations are making it worse, and the 25% tariffs Trump plans on imposing on other countries, most notably Mexico 🇲🇽 and Canada 🇨🇦, will make it even worse than that.
Speaking of Mexico 🇲🇽, Trump did try to send these deported immigrants to Mexico 🇲🇽, he was going to fly them out of the country in military transport aircraft (mostly C-17s), but the Mexican president 🇲🇽 Claudia Sheinbaum said “no,” and he immediately backed down. So, he turned to Colombia 🇨🇴 instead, and that’s how we got into this whole spat with Colombia 🇨🇴. The Colombian president 🇨🇴 Gustavo Petro at first said “no” just like Sheinbaum did. His reasons for saying “no” where that the Colombian migrants 🇨🇴 were being mistreated, that the treatment of these deportees was not to Colombia 🇨🇴 and they wouldn’t accept the migrants unless they were treated more humanely and with more dignity.
But Trump wasn’t having it, and decided to threaten Petro with a 25% tariffs as well as impose legit economic sanctions on the country and a ban on all Colombian government officials 🇨🇴 from traveling to the country if he didn’t accept the migrants. This made people here in the States 🇺🇸 panic a bit because that would cause coffee prices ☕️ to go up, among other Colombian exports 🇨🇴 (exports for them, imports for us), agricultural or otherwise, but it was mostly the coffee thing ☕️ that had people spooked. America 🇺🇸 runs on Dunkin’, or really any coffee place ☕️ really. We Americans 🇺🇸 love our coffee ☕️, it’s just like Brits 🇬🇧 feel about their tea 🫖, we can’t live without it.
Then, Petro clapped back with some threats of his own, saying that if the US 🇺🇸 imposes tariffs on Colombian goods 🇨🇴, then he will impose retaliatory tariffs on American goods 🇺🇸, threatening to start a full-on trade war between the two countries. It kept going on like this all day on Sunday (January 26, 2025), and people really were starting to think that this trade war was going to happen until all of a sudden it didn’t. Trump and Petro reached some sort of agreement where Colombia 🇨🇴 would accept those migrants on the condition that the US 🇺🇸 not impose tariffs or sanctions on the country or put travel bans on all government officials.
So yeah, after all that big boy talk ♂︎ from Petro, all that posturing to stand up to Trump, he caved, he immediately caved. Even Sheinbaum held out longer than that. She hasn’t caved to Donald Trump’s threats. I guess that proves one and for all, female leaders ♀︎ are stronger than male ones ♂︎, or at least Jewish leaders ✡️ are stronger than non-Jewish ones because her and Zelenskyy are pretty strong and have not compromised or given into threats from bullies and aggressors. We were all spared from the stupidest and most unnecessary trade war in history. This all happened so fast that political commentators were not able to keep up with it and update the people about it. Some didn’t even update the story at all, like Adam Mockler, a self-proclaimed Gen Z political commentator and reporter who’s a member of the MediasTouch Network, an absolute joke of a news network if you ask me 🙄 if this is the level of journalism we can expect from them.
Adam made two videos about the tensions between the US 🇺🇸 and Colombia 🇨🇴 and the back and forth arguments between Trump and Petro, and then never made a follow up video on it despite the fact that Trump and Petro came to an agreement, and Petro capitulated and decided to accept the migrants anyway, and the trade war he was dreading about never happened…for now at least. I didn’t even learn about this whole issue until it was all over, and Adam still didn’t make a third follow up video on it talking about how it ended. That’s kind of irresponsible to mislead your audience and not tell them how a certain developed or ended and leaving them hanging, believing that the US 🇺🇸 just entered a trade war with Colombia 🇨🇴 even though we haven’t, at least not yet. This is why I don’t trust Adam, or anyone in the MediasTouch Network and why I find the so-called pro-democracy movement to be inadequate.
Of course, Trump and Trump world claimed victory in this whole ridiculous situation, this conflict if you can even call it that which Trump instigated. We wouldn’t be having this conversation, and I wouldn’t be writing about it if Trump wasn’t such a racist dumbass and tried to dump a bunch of deported immigrants onto another foreign country after the first one said “no.” I saw this video put out by CBS reporting on the deescalation and the agreement reached between the two leaders, and I cannot tell you how many idiotic MAGA supporters 🇺🇸 I saw in the comment section celebrating this outcome, calling Trump a strongman ♂︎ and presenting this as a victory and as some masterful diplomatic move, and saying that we need to strong arm and bully other countries like this to get what we want. That’s diplomacy, right? 🙄
Do these people not realize that these countries that Trump is antagonizing and alienating right now are not adversaries of the US 🇺🇸? They’re either allies or trading partners of the US 🇺🇸, Trump should not to be bullying them or pushing around them this way, he should be trying to maintain good relations with them and being friendly with them. We got along just fine, did business with them and cooperated with them on law enforcement, counterterrorism, and defense issues without having to do any of this. This the kind of stuff we should only reserve for countries like Russia 🇷🇺, China 🇨🇳, Iran 🇮🇷, and North Korea 🇰🇵, countries that Trump has refused to confront or make any statements or moves on his first week in office.
The stupidest thing I saw was this comment saying what Trump did was “Big Stick” diplomacy, referring to Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt’s old “Speak softly, carry a big stick” approach to foreign policy. But, that’s not even what that was, Trump is not a genuine practitioner of it, and if he is trying to copy Teddy Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” policy, then he’s pretty bad at it because rather than looking stronger, he looks weaker with every confrontation he gets into with the leader of a foreign country. Saying Trump is a “Big Stick” kind of president is like saying that Henry Kissinger was a realpolitik kind of diplomat, he wasn’t. It is a mischaracterization and mislabeling of these two men ♂︎.
I don’t even know if this can even be considered a true victory for Trump because the way I see it, it seems there are two possibilities, either Trump caved or Petro caved, and from the story about Petro hitting back with threats of his own it seems a bit more like Trump caved than he caved. Especially since according to the deal they made, Trump ended up just transporting the migrants the way that Petro to begin with. So, Petro is the one who got his way on that, not Trump, and yet Trump and his minions, his supporters are claiming victory even if it’s not the strongman alpha male ♂︎ victory they’re making it out to be. I guess you could say that both of them caved, in their own ways for their own reasons.
Trump caved and decided to negotiate for real instead of making petty threats once he realized that Petro wasn’t going to back down and was going to retaliate with tariffs of his own, and that spooked, and Petro caved once he realized that Trump was serious about imposing sanctions on Colombia 🇨🇴 if he didn’t accept the migrants, and he didn’t want to risk putting his own country through economic hardship just to look tough in front of Donald Trump. I do think he was more spooked by the sanctions and the travel ban than he was the tariffs because the tariffs would hurt the US 🇺🇸 not Colombia 🇨🇴. But the sanctions and the travel bans would hurt Colombia 🇨🇴, maybe not in the short term but certainly the long term if the US 🇺🇸 didn’t lift those sanctions or travel bans once Trump was out of office and kept them in place.
They both realized that this conflict was untenable, and if they kept it up, both of them would look weak, so they did it just to save face, I think. This isn’t a big of a victory as Trump and the media are spinning it and isn’t a big of a victory as Trump world is hailing it as. It made Trump look weak, and frankly, it made Petro look weak too, which is why I say he caved too and why he came out of this a loser just as much as Trump. He took down with him, because that’s what Trump does to foreign leaders who play his ridiculous games.
I do ultimately think that Petro’s decision to capitulate was the wrong move (even if he did ultimately get what he wanted), and had he stuck the course, Trump would’ve backed off and would’ve just gone to another South American country. I also think it sends the wrong message to other countries, that it’s better to give into Trump’s demands than stand up to him. At least Sheinbaum and Danish prime minister 🇩🇰 Mette Frederikson are standing up to him and showing everyone else how it’s done. They are the two world leaders so far that haven’t played along, and that has been to their benefit, not just in terms of their own reputations but also in terms of their own countries’ wellbeing. And they both happen to be women ♀︎, funny that 🤷♂️.
Now you might be wondering reading this, why exactly is Trump antagonizing countries that are our allies or closest neighbors and trading partners? I did see a lot of people say that Colombia 🇨🇴 is a US ally 🇺🇸 and is one of the US 🇺🇸’s closest allies, but all I could ask myself was, are they though? Yeah, they are one of our closest trading partners, we are allies to some degree, and we did have good relations with them at least until Trump came along, but they aren’t one of our closest allies.
I don’t consider them an ally of the US 🇺🇸 in the same way that I consider the UK 🇬🇧, Australia 🇦🇺, Japan 🇯🇵, or Canada 🇨🇦 allies of the US 🇺🇸, where we do everything together, and they’re dependent on us and we’re dependent on them. They aren’t the first lines of defense, they aren’t one of the first ones we turn to when we’re trying to build a military coalition to face off against a country that’s causing us problems. So, that’s why I put Colombia 🇨🇴 in the category of trading partner than ally. I hope that makes sense.
But anyway, some people (like Seth Meyers) think Trump is doing this as a distraction from the other bad stuff he’s doing domestically like firing a dozen or so inspectors generals without informing Congress beforehand, you know “flood the zone with as much shit as possible so that the opposition can’t cover it all and gets exhausted” that sort of thing, and while I think it’s part of that, I think there’s more to it than that. I think it’s because Trump is actually pro-Russia 🇷🇺 and pro-China 🇨🇳, and is doing everything he can to help them, and shares a common goal with them: ending the current liberal international order and replacing it with multipolarism.
They want to end the current unipolar world led by the United States 🇺🇸, the Pax Americana 🇺🇸, and replace it with a multipolar world, which really just means giving each great power their own sphere of influence, their own little little fiefdoms to rule over and not risk anyone interfering with it or scolding them for violating international law or subjugating smaller countries. To Putin, Trump, and Xi and other proponents of multipolarism, smaller countries are not “real” and have no right to sovereignty, the people who live in those smaller countries have no agency of their own, they’re just chess pieces ♟️ to be moved around on a geopolitical chessboard.
I think that this is what we’re seeing play out in Latin America right now, this is Trump trying to create his own sphere of influence, his own little empire to rule over, while allowing Putin and Xi to have theirs so long as they don’t interfere with his. He wants to extend the American empire 🇺🇸 beyond just Latin America and Canada 🇨🇦 of course, and does want to include Greenland 🇬🇱, a territory the US 🇺🇸 has never actually owned or controlled but has coveted for a very long time. Before Trump, the last time that the US 🇺🇸 meant a real attempt at buying Greenland 🇬🇱 was the late 1860s with William H. Seward, the Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln. He successfully negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia 🇷🇺, and wanted to do the same with Greenland 🇬🇱, but that effort failed as the Danes 🇩🇰 said “no” then just as they said “no” to Trump now. He even wanted to annex Canada 🇨🇦 just as Trump wants to do now. So, Trump’s just stealing all of Seward’s ideas, probably without even realizing it.
Of course, despite wanting to craft his own little sphere of influence, Trump seems to be willing to let China 🇨🇳 interfere with it, just as Putin is willing to let China 🇨🇳 interfere with his. Like, as soon as this conflict with Colombia 🇨🇴 was resolved, at least for the time being, China 🇨🇳 immediately tried to court Colombia 🇨🇴 and bring it under its own sphere of influence. And so far, Trump hasn’t said anything about it or done anything to stop it. He also hasn’t announced any new tariffs against China 🇨🇳 despite saying that he was going to tariff China 🇨🇳 on the campaign trail and in the lead-up to the inauguration. And of course, China 🇨🇳 has been encroaching on Central Asia which had been Russia 🇷🇺’s traditional sphere of influence due its connection to the Soviet Union ☭ and Russian Empire 🇷🇺, and Putin has done nothing to stop it and reaffirm Russia 🇷🇺’s control over Central Asia.
Why are Trump and Putin allowing this when they’re both imperialists with their own dreams to create their own empires? Because they’re both men ♂︎ that want money 💵 and power above all else, they both know that China 🇨🇳 is where the money 💵 is 🤑. Putin wants to win the war in Ukraine 🇺🇦, and knows that he can’t win without Chinese backing 🇨🇳, and Trump has a secret bank account in China 🇨🇳 that he refuses to talk about and has other business ties to China 🇨🇳. Mostly through his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kirschner, the same guy ♂︎ who used his connections to the Trump administration and the Trump family to secure a lucrative business deal with the Saudis 🇸🇦. He used his political and familial connections to get money 💵 from a foreign government. Corruption at its finest 🤑.
They also recognize that China 🇨🇳 is the only major power that will allow the two of them to be dictators and not pressure them to democratize (something that the US 🇺🇸 traditionally used to do before Trump came along), since China 🇨🇳 has a policy of supporting every authoritarian regime on the planet and protecting them from the democracies of the world. A complete inverse of the US 🇺🇸’s old policy of protecting every democracy in the world from the authoritarian regimes of the world. So, they are willing to compromise a little bit and let China 🇨🇳 walk all over them so long as China 🇨🇳 keeps giving them things that they want, and continues letting them do whatever they want.
I did watch The Lincoln Project’s video talking about Trump’s first week in office and mostly focusing on his controversial decision to pardon the January 6th insurrectionists, and while I generally don’t like The Lincoln Project or watch them anymore, the video was worth it for Rick Wilson’s rant about Trump pardoning the J6 insurrectionists. The reason why I’m even bringing it up is that Rick brought a good point about why fighting a war against Mexico 🇲🇽 would a terrible idea: the cartels themselves.
Now, as soon as Trump was sworn in and assumed the office of the presidency, he signed an executive order (among many executive orders that night) that officially designated all Mexican drug cartels 🇲🇽 (or I guess any drug cartel really in any country, since Colombia 🇨🇴 also has drug cartels or used to, but this executive order was mostly targeted at Mexican ones 🇲🇽) as international terrorist organizations, giving the US military 🇺🇸 the ability to deal with them as if they’re terrorist organizations. Trump wants to start a war with Mexico 🇲🇽, a real war, and fighting the cartels will be his excuse.
But, as Rick points out in the video, fighting the cartels will not be easy to put it lightly. The cartels not just some lightly armed small time criminal gangs, you know, they’re not the gangs in Haiti 🇭🇹. The cartels possess actual military grade equipment, including armored vehicles, something that no other kind of criminal organization in this world has. They’re arguably more powerful than the actual Mexican military 🇲🇽. Fighting them will be nothing like fighting the Taliban, al-Qaeda, or ISIS. The US 🇺🇸 would take some serious casualties from fighting the cartels, a level of casualties that they never took while fighting the various Islamic militant groups ☪️ during the War on Terror. Combine that with an insurgency that would inevitably pop up in the event of a US invasion and occupation of Mexico 🇺🇸🇲🇽 and probably end up sharing armaments with the cartels, and then you got a real bloodbath 🩸, a true meat grinder in a way that the wars in Iraq 🇮🇶 and Afghanistan 🇦🇫 were not.
The latest piece of news about the Trump administration that I want to talk about is that the US Air Force 🇺🇸 (USAF 🇺🇸) announced yesterday (Monday January 27, 2025) that they will keep the Tuskegee Airmen ♂︎ in the history curriculum that they teach to new recruits after Trump signed an executive order to end all DEI programs within the federal government and pressured the Air Force to remove the Tuskegee Airmen ♂︎ from their history curriculum.
They faced immense backlash for this decision from not just liberals and progressives, but also from some conservatives and military veterans, especially black veterans and even plenty of active duty black servicemen and women ♂︎♀︎ especially those serving in the Air Force right now as Airmen and Airwomen ♂︎♀︎. So they caved to the pressure, and decided to reverse their decision and keep the Tuskegee Airmen ♂︎ as part of their curriculum. So, while that was indeed a victory for those who care about social justice and care about preserving the memory and honoring the accomplishments of black Americans 🇺🇸 (African-Americans 🇺🇸 if prefer), the damage was already been done.
The Air Force’s reputation has been ruined probably for years to come, and now black people have even less of a reason to join the military or specifically the Air Force since they now perceive it as an inherently racist institution that never really cared about them, that never respected them or their accomplishments, and is openly hostile to them. They now see it as an institution willing to throw them under the bus to score political points, and appease the current president (who is racist and white supremacist) and the white supremacists in the top leadership of the Air Force who always hated that black people were allowed to serve and that black men ♂︎ were honored and held in the same regard as the white men ♂︎ who served, and felt emboldened by Trump’s return to the White House. Good job Trump, good job Ashworth 🙄👎. I wonder what the outcome of this drama will mean for similar efforts to restore the Confederate names of certain military bases throughout the country.
I guess I should talk a little bit more about the movie at hand. I do still adore this movie, I have a lot of nostalgia for it. I think, as a kid, I mostly enjoyed because of the F/A-18 Super Hornet, which is my favorite fighter jet of all time, and I first saw this movie during a time when I was really into planes and jets. I had already seen Top Gun (the original) by that point, so this was right up my alley. Even if Behind Enemy Lines is a much darker movie than Top Gun, like it is a legit war movie unlike Top Gun which was essentially a sports movie but with planes instead of sports and Naval aviators instead of star athletes (or rather, sports jocks). The movie managed to show some rather disturbing imagery despite its PG-13 rating.
Like I said in the review, I didn’t realize it was PG-13 rated until I saw it on that viewing on YouTube, I always thought it was rated R. The fact that I thought it was R rated all these years shows how brutal this movie is. The sequels are all rated R, but not this first initial one. Owen Wilson works well as a leading man ♂︎, this showed that he was capable of doing a serious role, it’s a shame that he didn’t do many serious roles like this after this. The only action movie he was in where he was the leading man ♂︎ and not a supporting role or comic relief after this was No Escape as I said in the review itself. No relation to the 1994 No Escape directed by Martin Campbell (the director of GoldenEye, Casino Royale 🎰, The Mask of Zorro, and The Legend of Zorro) and starring Ray Liotta, Lance Hendrikson, Ernie Hudson, Stuart Wilson, Kevin Dillion, and Michael Lerner. That one ironically is more known than the 2015 No Escape with Owen Wilson and Pierce Brosnan that I’m referring to. So, it’s best to differentiate them by No Escape (1994) and No Escape (2015).
And of course, Gene Hackman was great as always, he never failed to deliver when it came to giving a great performance. He works as this stern but kind admiral who is willing to do the right thing and save his men ♂︎ even if it cost him his job. His dynamic with Owen Wilson is interesting because he was almost like a father figure to him in this movie, like even he’s tough on him and scolds him for his poor decision making like at the beginning when he scolds him for wanting to leave the Navy because he’s not getting enough action (“action” as in fighting in a war and killing people, not “action” as in having sex, though he probably hasn’t been getting that either during his time in the Navy), he still cares about him and is still willing to go above and beyond to save him after he gets shot down and stranded in war-torn Bosnia 🇧🇦.
Speaking of which, this is one of the few mainstream American movies 🇺🇸 that actually portrayed the Bosnian War 🇧🇦, probably the most brutal and violent of the Yugoslav Wars. The Bosnian War 🇧🇦 saw some of the worst atrocities and war crimes committed during the entire breakup of Yugoslavia. Massacres and genocides took place during this war, and this gets into that. Though, it only depicts Bosnian Serb war crimes and genocide rather than Croat or Bosniak war crimes and genocide. I mean, to be fair, the Bosnian Serbs were the ones committing the majority of the war crimes and atrocities during the war, but there were far from the only ones, everyone had blood 🩸 on their hands during that war, and no one’s record was clean.
But, the Bosnian Serbs were by far the worst offenders and were the ones who instigated hostilities within Bosnia 🇧🇦 with the help of Serbian president 🇷🇸 Slobodan Milošević in his quest to create a greater Serbia 🇷🇸. They even had help from Russian mercenaries 🇷🇺 and received armaments from Russia 🇷🇺 including the SAMs (surface-to-air missiles) depicted in the film, though whether they directly from the Russian government and military 🇷🇺 or if they just from the Russian mercenaries 🇷🇺 is still contentious.
But, given how Serbia 🇷🇸 and Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina 🇧🇦 still maintain good relations with the Kremlin, I’m guessing that Russia 🇷🇺 (despite being under Yeltsin at the time) supported Bosnian Serb militias and supported Milošević’s nationalist goal of uniting all the Serbian territories within the former Yugoslavia and bringing all under his control, at least tacitly. I mean, they did come to Serbia 🇷🇸 (still called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, or FR Yugoslavia, or the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, or just Serbia and Montenegro)’s defense during the Kosovo War 🇽🇰, threatening nuclear war ☢️ against NATO if they continued their attack on Serbia 🇷🇸, continued their support for the ethnic Albanian separatists inside Kosovo 🇽🇰, specifically the Kosovo Liberation Army, and occupied Kosovo 🇽🇰 with a peacekeeping force.
It’s also the only film in the Behind Enemy Lines series that is actually based on true events. The sequels, with the exception of Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil, are completely fictional, not based in any real history. Sure, it embellishes it, changes a lot of details, and completely fictionalizes other things, but it did use a real event as it’s a basis. A US fighter pilot 🇺🇸 really did get shot down over Bosnia 🇧🇦 during the Bosnian War 🇧🇦, though the pilot in question, Scott O’Grady was an Air Force pilot rather than a Naval pilot and the plane that he was flying when he got shot down was a F-16 Fighting Falcon rather than a F/A-18 Super Hornet. The Super Hornet didn’t even exist when the Mrkonjić Grad Incident took place. Historical accuracy was not what they were aiming for in this movie.
BTW, did you know that Scott O’Grady went onto become hardcore MAGA 🇺🇸 years later, like he is all in on Trump, even to the point of spreading election conspiracy theories 🗳️ in 2020 and supporting Michael Flynn’s calls for Trump to institute martial law while he was in the middle of a confirmation hearing after Trump nominated him to be the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (ASD (ISA)). He wanted Trump to declare martial law just because he lost the 2020 election 🗳️ to Joe Biden, and didn’t accept the results. It’s ironic that he’s the one who called John Kerry a traitor for things he may or may not have done in Vietnam 🇻🇳 (Republicans like O’Grady have lied repeatedly about John Kerry’s Vietnam War record 🇻🇳 and have tried to discredit him ever since he ran against Bush in the 2004 election 🗳️, that’s when they all of a sudden started questioning Kerry’s war record and tried to sow doubt about it), when he was the one calling for martial law and installing a dictator, going against the wishes of the American people 🇺🇸, which is probably the most un-American thing 🇺🇸 I can think of.
If anyone’s a traitor, it’s him, and everyone who spread these baseless and thoroughly debunked election conspiracy theories 🗳️ and supported the January 6th insurrection, which I’m sure O’Grady denies was even an insurrection at all. This man ♂︎ may have been a hero in the past, it’s a shame what happened to him, but he is not a hero anymore. The things he’s advocating are the opposite of heroic and he’s supporting a movement and a president who is determined to dismantle everything that made this country a democracy, an envy of the world, and a safe haven for those looking for a better life. I am so glad that he didn’t become the ASD (ISA).
It’s a shame that the director of this movie, John Moore never went on to make anything really of note or praise, since he went onto direct the fifth Die Hard film, A Good Day to Die Hard, which many Die Hard fans consider to be the absolute worst one. But, it’s not like this movie was widely praised when it first came out, it was ripped apart by critics at the time and is still not very liked by critics even to this day, having a dismissal 37% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes 🍅. Sure, the movie does have flaws, the editing can be weird at times, the F/A-18 chase scene with the SAMs was not realistic, and other combat scenes featured shoddy tactics such as a Bosnian Serb sniper who was for some reason right out in the open to get shot by the Marines that were part of the rescue team assembled by Leslie Reigart (Gene Hackman’s character). But, come on, it’s a lot better than a 37%, it’s not what I would call a “rotten” movie, but then again, I don’t care what Rotten Tomatoes 🍅 says. I don’t base my opinions on movies based on what some review aggregate site says, based on some number score or percentage.
But, despite the overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics, the movie was a box office success, grossing over $92 million worldwide 💵 against a $40 million budget 💵. A big reason why this movie was so successful was 9/11. The movie came out on November 30, 2001, two months after 9/11 happened, so that event was still fresh in a lot of people’s minds and they were reeling from it. The War on Terror had already begun with the invasion of Afghanistan 🇦🇫 on October 7, 2001, and military recruitment overall was at its highest level in decades. The US military 🇺🇸 hadn’t been loved and respected like that in a long time, not since the Gulf War. The movie took full advantage of the jingoistic patriotic fervor that took shape in the country after that horrible day (September 11, 2001), and rode it to success 🤑. Had this movie been released months before 9/11 instead of two months after, it might’ve been a different story, but the fact that it was released after 9/11 helped it. There was possibly no better time to release a war movie than in the post-9/11 era, especially in the immediate months afterward. It’s the same reason why Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor was such a huge success.
Another thing that I forgot to mention that I didn’t mention in the review is that movie takes place on Christmas 🎄, so it’s technically a Christmas movie 🎄. Oh, and the Russo-Ukrainian War 🇷🇺🇺🇦 did exceed the number of casualties in the Bosnian War 🇧🇦, since I said in the review that the war in Ukraine 🇺🇦 hadn’t exceeded the number of casualties of the war in Bosnia 🇧🇦 because it hadn’t yet. I wrote that review two months after the war began. But now it’s been two years, almost going on three, and the war has well exceeded the number of casualties in the Bosnian War 🇧🇦. They don’t call the current phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War 🇷🇺🇺🇦 the largest war in Europe since World War II for nothing.
In fact, just on the Russian side 🇷🇺 alone, the war has exceeded the total number of casualties in the Soviet-Afghan War ☭🇦🇫. More Russian soldiers 🇷🇺 have died in this current war with Ukraine 🇺🇦 than Soviet soldiers ☭ died in the war in Afghanistan 🇦🇫. Not the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 with a capital W, but the war that the Soviets ☭ were fighting in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 against the Mujahideen during the 1980s. This is why I wish the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 was not called the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 and was called something else like the Afghan-American War 🇦🇫🇺🇸, or the American-Afghan War 🇺🇸🇦🇫, or the NATO-Afghan War 🇦🇫, or maybe even the Taliban War. The name, War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 is so non-specific, you need to be more specific because there has been more than one war in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 throughout history. It’s why I’m why I’m glad historians distinguish the Soviet war in Afghanistan ☭🇦🇫 by calling it the Soviet-Afghan War ☭🇦🇫.
As mentioned before, Behind Enemy Lines was successful enough to get not one, not two, but three sequels, however, none of them were released theatrically. They were all released direct-to-DVD 📀, so there is good chance that even people who have heard of and seen the first Behind Enemy Lines, they likely haven’t heard of or seen any of the sequels. An interesting thing about the sequels compared to the first one among a few interesting things is that they’re all about Navy SEALs (Sea, Air, and Land). They’re all Navy movies, but the first one is the only one that’s about Naval aviators, the rest of them are about Navy SEALs. I don’t why, why were they so obsessed with Navy SEALs that they made three movies about them? I wish they did other movies about Naval officers like actual sailors. They could’ve done one more movie about a fighter pilot or flight navigator.
Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil is about a Navy SEAL mission in North Korea 🇰🇵 that goes wrong, and the SEALs get captured by the North Koreans 🇰🇵 where they’re presumably tortured, and have to try to escape the prison camp that they found themselves in presumably. I only saw this movie once, and it’s been a really long time. But I remember that weird scene where one of the SEALs has a vision of a shaman and a tiger 🐅 while he’s dying from a gunshot wound he got from a North Korean soldier 🇰🇵 pretty vividly. As said before, this is the only other Behind Enemy Lines movie besides the first one that’s based on some kind of real event. It’s even looser than even the first one was. The only real thing in the movie that happened was the Ryanggang explosion that the whole plot is based on, that’s it. Everything else is fictional including the characters.
The Ryanggang explosion did actually happen, in the year 2004, it was has never been explained, and no one outside of North Korea 🇰🇵 knows what it was or what caused it. No one even knows if it was nuclear ☢️ or not, since no neighboring countries detected any radiation ☢️ that would indicate a nuclear explosion ☢️, but the explosion looked like mushroom cloud, and mushroom clouds are usually associated with nuclear explosions ☢️. So, it was event that was unexplained and has remained unexplained (the North Korean government 🇰🇵 is infamously secretive about pretty much everything that happens within their borders). It leaves enough wiggle for a storyteller to come in and fill in the blanks with their own explanation.
That’s what the filmmakers behind Axis of Evil did, they took this real event that had no real explanation behind it and decided to come up with their own fictional explanation for it. The title, Axis of Evil is in direct reference to George W. Bush’s infamous State of the Union speech where he talked about there being what he called an “Axis of Evil” that was conspiring to threaten the peace of the world and listed North Korea 🇰🇵 as being apart of it, along with Saddam’s Iraq 🇮🇶 and Iran 🇮🇷. It’s a movie about North Korea 🇰🇵, so, why not? You can probably guess what the politics of these movies are based on that fact alone. Keith David is in the movie as a character named Master Chief Scott Boytano, and also provides the movie’s opening narration, the little “know your enemy” history lesson about North Korea 🇰🇵. He does return in the third movie, reprising as the same character.
The third movie, Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia 🇨🇴 deals with the still ongoing Colombian conflict 🇨🇴 that started all the way back in 1964. It’s about a team of Navy SEALs going on a mission in Colombia 🇨🇴 to provide security for peace talks between the government and FARC 🇨🇴 (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia 🇨🇴), an extreme far-left Marxist-Leninist insurgent group that the Colombian government 🇨🇴 was still at war with when this movie was made and when it came out (it came out in 2009, January 6, 2009 to be exact). FARC 🇨🇴 no longer exists, it officially dissolved in 2017, but there is a bunch of what have been termed “FARC dissidents 🇨🇴” that are still active, continuing the work of the organization and still fighting the government and committing acts of violence in its name.
So, the movie’s about the then hypothetical peace talks between the government and FARC 🇨🇴, and these Navy SEALs have been sent in to provide security for and oversee these peace talks to make sure they go off without a hitch and go according to plan. But, the peace talks are sabotaged (what a shock 😮) when the leaders of both sides end up getting killed by a surprise attack by some unknown group, and the SEALs end up getting framed for the attack and having to fight for their lives against the Colombian Special Forces 🇨🇴 known as the Urban Counter-Terrorism Special Forces Group – Alpha (AFEUR). Judging by that plot summary and the clichés and conventions of the genre, and how these types of plots usually go in these type of movies, I’m guessing that the leader of the AFEUR is the one who framed them for the attack in order to keep the war going between the Colombian government 🇨🇴 and FARC 🇨🇴. That or it’s some rogue government official or some rogue general who isn’t on board with the peace talks and wants the war to continue.
The fourth film, SEAL Team 8: Behind Enemy Lines is the final film in the series, and is about a Navy SEAL mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 🇨🇩 to rescue a CIA agent and an asset who are being held captive in a military training camp belonging to a warlord I guess. The clip that I saw mentioned al-Qaeda, like Tom Sizemore’s character Ricks specifically says and I quote, “One of the agency [CIA]’s local assets in Congo 🇨🇩 uncovered a covert military training camp with a distinct al-Qaeda signature.” But al-Qaeda doesn’t even operate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 🇨🇩, they never have.
The DR Congo 🇨🇩 is a predominantly Christian nation ✝️, Christianity ✝️ is the majority religion in the country, practiced by 95.4% of the population according to Wikipedia. Islam ☪️ is only practiced by 1.5% of the population, it’s a very small minority. Islamic militant organizations ☪️ like al-Qaeda and ISIS only operate in countries that have Muslim majority populations ☪️. You can’t recruit and radicalize people if they don’t even please is the Muslim faith ☪️. So, it’s pretty nonsensical for the movie to insulate an al-Qaeda presence in the Congo 🇨🇩.
It would’ve made more sense if the movie was set in Nigeria 🇳🇬 instead of the Congo 🇨🇩 and the bad guys were Boko Haram. Or if the movie were set in Somalia 🇸🇴 and the bad guys were al-Shabaab. Or if the movie were set in Mali 🇲🇱 during the Mali War 🇲🇱 which does involve al-Qaeda and other Islamic militant groups ☪️. Or if the movie were set in Niger 🇳🇪 which is facing an Islamic insurgency ☪️ of its own which was partially a spillover of the Mali War 🇲🇱. It would’ve made that plot point about the yellowcake make more sense since Niger 🇳🇪 is rich in uranium and especially yellowcake, Niger 🇳🇪 has a lot of yellowcake. The Bush administration even used a lie about Iraq 🇮🇶 trying to buy yellowcake from Niger 🇳🇪 (a totally fabricated story that they presented as fact) to justify their invasion in 2003. You get the idea. I think they only mentioned al-Qaeda to make the bad guys seem that much more evil.
But, once the SEALs are there in the Congo 🇨🇩, it becomes a mission about stopping this warlord from buying some uranium (yellowcake specifically) from some unknown buyer. The mission is officially unsanctioned, and the SEALs have almost no support (in fact they didn’t even have any prep time), so it becomes a fight for survival as they must fight their way through scores of guerrilla fighters from the warlord’s army to stop the sale of uranium and rescue the CIA agent and the local asset…if they aren’t already dead. I haven’t seen this movie so, I don’t know if the CIA agent and the local asset were still alive or dead when the Navy SEALs arrived. It would be kind of bummer for them to be dead since that was the reason why they went there in the first place.
It’s funny how Tom Sizemore is in the movie, he got top billing and they put him on the DVD and Blu-Ray covers 📀💿, and yet he’s barely in it from what it seems like. They show him holding a rifle on the cover, making it seem like he’s part of the team and he’s going to do some fighting, but he never fights. He’s just the commanding officer who stays behind in the base back at home (in the States 🇺🇸) and briefs the guys ♂︎ on their mission and then sends them on their way to Africa, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo 🇨🇩. And judging by that one clip I saw, it seems like he spends the rest of the movie in a control room looking at screens watching the guys carry out their mission and reacting whenever something bad happens. That’s blatant false advertising right there. And yes, I am aware that Tom Sizemore did pass away in the time since I originally wrote this review. He died on March 3, 2023, may he rest in peace 🪦 😔.
The weird thing about the third Behind Enemy Lines is that it was made by WWE, specifically WWE Studios, the film division of WWE, where they try to turn their wrestlers into movie stars just like The Rock, Dwayne Johnson…or John Cena. It even had a WWE wrestler in the lead role, that wrestler being Kenneth Anderson, or Mr. Kennedy as he’s referred to as in the ring. He’s the guy ♂︎ on the cover in case you’re wondering. I mean, I know that Gene Hackman’s character in the first movie, Leslie Reigart’s middle name is McMahon, but still, why did the WWE get involved? The other two, Axis of Evil and SEAL Team 8 had no WWE involvement whatsoever. So, Colombia 🇨🇴 was really just WWE’s vain attempt at hijacking the franchise.
SEAL Team 8 was filmed in South Africa 🇿🇦 and features a nearly all South African cast 🇿🇦. There’s at least one English actor 🏴 in there. Tom Sizemore is the only American actor 🇺🇸 as far as I can tell, which is pretty ironic since this is a movie about the US Navy 🇺🇸, specifically the Navy SEALs, and it’s supposed to be an “America 🇺🇸 fuck yeah!” kind of movie, a movie that’s supposed to make the US 🇺🇸 look cool and heroic. And yet it’s about as South African 🇿🇦 as it gets.
It’s about as American 🇺🇸 as the Kissing Booth 💋 movies which were also all filmed in South Africa 🇿🇦, but were actually supposed to take place in Los Angeles. No apple pie 🥧 here, just boerewors and sosaties here. Apple pie 🥧 isn’t even as American 🇺🇸 as we’re all often lead to believe, it came from Europe, just hamburgers 🍔 and French fries 🍟. Pumpkin pie is a better candidate as an all-American dessert 🇺🇸 that actually originated from America 🇺🇸. So, that was one correction that I wanted to make with this review, not all the Behind Enemy Lines movies were made by WWE and featured WWE wrestlers in the starring roles, just Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia 🇨🇴 was and did.
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I just wanted to let you know that I just rewatched the first Behind Enemy Lines from 2001. This is a childhood movie of mine, I watched it when I was really young, maybe a bit too young considering all the graphic images and intense scenes that this movie has, but my parents didn't really care what I watched. As long as it didn't have any sex or nudity in it, they were fine with me watching it. I think the reason why I even picked this movie out, and why I was so into it was because it had a F/A-18 Super Hornet in it, and I was really into fighter jets back then, and still am today.
My fascination for fighter jets and fighter planes hasn't really gone away, though that fascination has broadened a bit to general military stuff besides military aviation. The reason why I decided to rewatch it is because I saw a clip of it on YouTube on the Jo Blo channel randomly one day, and it got me thinking about it again. And I actually watched it on YouTube for free, since it is available on YouTube for free with ads (though I technically watched it ad free thanks to the Ad Blocker I have), unlike it's three sequels, which you have to buy and rent.
Surprisingly, despite the kind of graphic and intense stuff this movie has, it's actually rated PG-13, which surprised when I watched this. I could've sworn that it was R rated because I thought that I saw the R rating logo thing on the DVD case 📀 when I watched it as a kid. And it just seemed like a movie that would be rated R given that it's a war movie, and war movies tend to be R rated because of all the blood and gore that they show on screen. I mean, just look at Saving Private Ryan, or Hacksaw Ridge, or We Were Soldiers, or Black Hawk Down if you want to get a taste of that.
But, I guess this is a classic PG-13 movie, meaning that actually is more intense, graphic, and more befitting of that rating. The first PG-13 movie ever made was the original Red Dawn, and that movie had full-on blood sprays in it 🩸. Some PG-13 movies back in the day (in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s) even showed nudity, sometimes even full frontal nudity like in Titanic. You could never show that in a PG-13 movie today, it would just immediately get slapped with an R rating. PG-13 movies now are really just PG movies with a little extra swear words in it.
Anyway, I am glad to say that I did enjoy this movie rewatching it as a 23 year old adult. This movie does take place in the Bosnian War 🇧🇦, which was one of the Yugoslav Wars that happened in the 1990s, and it was largest and bloodiest 🩸 of all the Yugoslav Wars. 100,000 people were killed in that war, and over 2.2 million people were displaced, which makes it the most devastating European war since World War II, and still is to this day.
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The Russo-Ukrainian War 🇷🇺🇺🇦, and specifically the on-going Russian invasion of Ukraine 🇷🇺🇺🇦, as bad as it is, still has not reached the same death toll 💀 as the Bosnian War 🇧🇦, and hopefully it never does, but we'll just to have to see. A lot of people who died in the Bosnian War 🇧🇦 died from the Bosnian Genocide 🇧🇦, which was mainly targeted at Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims ☪️) but also Bosnian Croats as well, and was perpetrated by Bosnian Serbs.
This movie touches on that genocide a little bit given that the main plot is centered around a Bosnian Serb paramilitary group carrying out as a mass execution of dozens of innocent Bosniaks and then burying them in mass graves as part of the wider ethnic cleansing of Bosnia 🇧🇦. And the main protagonist of the film, Burnett (Owen Wilson's character) photographing it and filming it onto a floppy disc 💽 (very 90s there) during the recon mission and the Bosnian Serb paramilitary shooting his plane down, killing his pilot and friend, Stackhouse, and trying to kill him and get that disc 💽 before he gets it back and exposes what they did.
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I didn't really pick on any of this when I watched this as a kid, all of this stuff flew over my head. I didn't understand the conflict, I didn't understand the mission, I didn't understand why Burnett was there, and who these bad guys were and why they were after him. I only thing that I understood back then was the F/A-18 flying around. But, my knowledge of this stuff has increased since then, so I am able to pick on this stuff.
Speaking of which, I should mention that while this movie is technically based on or inspired by true events, it is entirely fictional. The characters are fictional, the story is fictional, and the details are fictional. The only parts that are real are the war that it takes place during, the Bosnian War 🇧🇦, and the basic bare-bones premise of an American fighter pilot 🇺🇸 being shot down over Bosnia 🇧🇦 during the Bosnian War 🇧🇦 and ending up behind enemy lines, meaning Bosnian Serb lines. So, it's more accurate to say that this movie was inspired by true events, rather than based on true events. That would've saved this movie from some controversy.
This is a movie that gets a lot of hate, especially from history buffs, military buffs, and former military servicemen ♂︎. The biggest complaint that this movie often gets is that it's unrealistic, and the part gets criticized the most for being unrealistic is the scene where Burnett and his pilot, Stackhouse's plane gets shot down by the SAMs (surface-to-air missiles); the most important scene in the movie, and the scene that sets the rest of the movie in motion. But, I didn't really mind it or care that much. I'm not an expert on military stuff at all, and I won't pretend to be, so I don't know how much of this stuff they got wrong and how of it, if any, did they get right, and I think a lot of people complaining about this movie's inaccuracies or lack of realism are pretending to be experts, or they think they know more than they really do.
Another complain that this movie gets sometimes is that it's too jingoistic, it's patriotic 🇺🇸 because it portrays the US military 🇺🇸 in a positive light. I don't really see that, yes, the movie is a bit pro-US military 🇺🇸, but that's mostly because it centers around the US military 🇺🇸, specifically, the US Navy 🇺🇸, and the protagonists are all US Navy servicemen 🇺🇸♂︎. But, it doesn't go too far into the territory of straight up propaganda, at least, in my eyes. It doesn't unquestionably portray the Navy as the good guys, or always in the right.
I mean, that one admiral guy ♂︎ in the black uniform who constantly denies Reigart (Gene Hackman's character) authorization to launch a rescue mission for Burnett isn't portrayed in the best of light. And the naval and military bureaucracy isn't portrayed that favorably either. The only guys ♂︎ in the Navy who are portrayed in positive lights are Burnett, Stackhouse, Reigart, that naval officer guy ♂︎ who always hangs around Reigart, and the Marine, but he's a Marine, and Marines aren't exactly the same thing as the Navy, although they are related.
Also, we have to remember, that this movie was released in November 2001, a month after the 9/11 attacks, so most American audiences 🇺🇸 back then didn't really care if a movie was "too patriotic" or "too jingoistic." We may laugh at and even condemn the hyper-patriotism and jingoism that happened in the US 🇺🇸 after the 9/11 attacks, but that's how people felt at the time. Americans 🇺🇸 were really patriotic about their country back then in late 2001, in ways that they really aren't anymore. The only critic who really raised the jingoism complaint was Roger Ebert, and I don't really value his opinion on movies, nor do I value the opinions of many film critics.
So, yeah, I don't' really agree with those criticisms. This movie still holds up for me, I still enjoy it. I was really rooting for Burnett in this movie, I wanted him to survive and get back to the ship, and the part where Reigart goes out with the Marines to rescue him was so intense, I was bit on my edge of seat during that part. And when they do actually rescue and bring back to the ship is pretty satisfying. This guy went through hell, trying to survive, and ultimately made it out, he survived.
It was also satisfying when he killed that one asshole Bosnian Serb sniper guy in the blue track suit who shot Stackhouse, and it was satisfying to see that asshole Bosnian Serb general (the actual main bad guy in the movie) get his comeuppance and get put on trail and convicted for his genocidal war crimes after he was exposed by that footage shot by Burnett in the F/A-18 💽. Even if that all happens off screen, not the sniper guy getting killed, but the general getting arrested, put on trail, and convicted of war crimes. Owen Wilson was pretty good in this movie.
This was a very different role for him, especially at the time, and I wished that he did more action movies like this. Sure, he was in Armageddon, but that's different compared to this. He isn't the comic relief in this, nor is he a side character, he is the main lead, he is the main protagonist. And he does a good job as the main lead. The only serious action role he did after this to my knowledge was No Escape, where he's an American expat 🇺🇸 in another country (an unspecified Southeast Asian country), and he gets trapped in this one city with his family when it gets taken over by terrorists, and he has to find a way for him and his family to escape and survive, and Pierce Brosnan helps him out or something. I've never seen No Escape, but that's all I know about it from watching the trailer a long time ago.
I still can't believe that this movie was made into a franchise. It has three sequels as I mentioned before, and all of them were direct-to-video or direct-to-Blu-Ray. This is the only movie in the franchise that was released theatrically, and it is the only one with a decent budget around it. The other three sequel are clearly much lower budget compared to the first one, which is partially why they were released direct-to-video. They also have nothing to do with the first movie, other than they're all centered around the US Navy 🇺🇸 and have the same vague, barebones high concept premise of being trapped behind enemy lines.
I was actually excited when I learned that there was a second Behind Enemy Lines movie when I was younger, and I rented it when it came out. I also didn't know at the time that was about North Korea 🇰🇵, in fact, I didn't even know that North Korea 🇰🇵 existed back then in 2006. That's how little of the world that I knew. I learned about South Korea 🇰🇷 when I watched the behind-the-scenes featurette or documentary on the SpongeBob special 🧽, Atlantis Squarepantis (though they just referred to as Korea 🇰🇷 as a lot of people are inclined to do as they see South Korea 🇰🇷 as the true legitimate Korean state as opposed to North Korea 🇰🇵 which they see as fake, an illegitimate state claiming to be the real Korea when it isn’t), and I figured that if there's a South Korea 🇰🇷, then there must be a North Korea.
But I didn't even know what the actual North Korean government 🇰🇵 was, and what the country was like back then, that it was this brutal and repressive dictatorship that was isolated from the rest of the world, and had nuclear weapons ☢️. I didn't learn all that until I saw the Red Dawn remake in 2012, as well as The Interview in 2014 when all the crazy controversy happened about them not releasing the movie in theaters because of all those terrorist bomb threats made by North Korea 🇰🇵 or by a North Korean proxy terrorist organization 🇰🇵 because I remember the group claiming responsibility for the Sony Pictures hack and making the bomb threats was called the Guardians of Peace; a pretty ironic name, I know.
And then tensions rising between the US 🇺🇸 and North Korea 🇰🇵 over that movie and North Korea 🇰🇵 maybe launching nukes ☢️ at the US 🇺🇸 over it. Those were some crazy times, almost as crazy as the times we're living in now. People were actually afraid to make movies about North Korea 🇰🇵 for a while after that, but luckily, those fears have died down a bit, even if there aren't as many movies about North Korea 🇰🇵 now as there were in the early-to-mid 2010s.
I didn't watch the whole thing, the only part I watched, the only part I remember watching was that one part where the Navy SEALs are getting annihilated by the enemy (the North Koreans 🇰🇵) on a mountain, and that one injured Navy SEAL 🤕 lying on the ground, bleeding out 🩸 hallucinates and sees a weird shaman guy in a cloak and a tiger 🐅 before he dies, as if the shaman is like his ancestor or like the grim reaper and the tiger 🐅 was like his spirit animal or something. That part was so weird, the editing in that movie is so weird. There's some weird editing in this movie too, but it's not as much as in the second movie, Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil. Axis of Evil is probably one of the weirdest action, military war movies ever made, but hey, at least the music score 🎵 by Pinar Toprak is pretty good 👍.
I've never seen the third movie, Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia 🇨🇴, or the fourth movie, SEAL Team 8: Behind Enemy Lines which curiously stars Tom Sizemore (or at least, he's the one that got top billing), and takes place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 🇨🇩, which has something to do with al-Qaeda according to that one clip I saw on YouTube. Tom Sizemore's character literally says that it's a "covert military training camp with a distinct al-Qaeda signature." I didn't know that al-Qaeda even operated in the Congo 🇨🇩, I thought that country didn't have any Muslims ☪️, or at least, not even Muslims ☪️ for al-Qaeda or any other Islamist terrorist group ☪️ to have a significant foothold in there, and operate a training camp there like in SEAL Team 8: Behind Enemy Lines.
I'm surprised they didn't set the movie in Libya 🇱🇾, or Syria 🇸🇾, but I guess that would've been a bit too topical and controversial for them; that movie did come out in 2014 after all. Or at least, have it set in Sudan 🇸🇩, or Mauritania 🇲🇷, or Mali 🇲🇱, or Nigeria 🇳🇬, Niger 🇳🇪, or Chad 🇹🇩, Cameroon 🇨🇲, or even the Central African Republic 🇨🇫, African countries that have significant Muslim populations ☪️, and that al-Qaeda, ISIS, or Boko Haram are known to operate in. I'm also surprised that there's a SEAL Team 8, I thought there was only a SEAL Team 6, which is why SEAL Team 6 is mentioned all the time, not any other SEAL Teams.
That's another thing too, all of the sequels are about Navy SEALs, or at least, two of them are, I don't know about Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia 🇨🇴. The first movie, this movie, is the only one that's about a Navy fighter pilot, a Navy flight navigator, which is what Burnett is, he's a flight navigator. All the other ones are about Navy SEALs and star WWE wrestlers, and were co-produced by WWE, specifically WWE Studios, at least the last two were.
I don't think Behind Enemy Lines II: Axis of Evil was produced by WWE Studios or stars any WWE wrestlers, and that's probably why it feels more in line with this movie, the first Behind Enemy Lines than the third or fourth, at least spiritually. Axis of Evil obviously has nothing do with the first Behind Enemy Lines in terms of plot or characters. Anyway, what's up with that? Why couldn't we get another Behind Enemy Lines movie about a fighter pilot, or about a sailor? Why do they all have to be about Navy SEALs? I mean, Navy SEALs are cool, Navy SEALs are badass, but they're not the only aspect of the US Navy 🇺🇸. This is like making movies about the US Army 🇺🇸 and only covering the Green Berets, the Army Special Forces. Why not do an Army movie about an infantryman, a bomb disposal guy, a tank crew, or an attack helicopter pilot?
Maybe, I'll watch the sequels one day, who knows, but as for this movie, the one that started it all, I like it, and I recommend anyone watch it, especially if they like action movies or war movies. I kind of hope some of those YouTube movie reactors do reactions to this movie, but I'll just have to wait for that.
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Update (Tuesday April 26, 2022):
You know what I noticed just now? That Gene Hackman has been in two movies that have the word "enemy" in the title. The first one was Enemy of the State in 1998, and the second was Behind Enemy Lines in 2001.
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Note:
Another connection between these two movies have is that Tom Sizemore is in Enemy of the State, while he's also in the third sequel to Behind Enemy Lines, SEAL Team 8: Behind Enemy Lines.
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Update (Sunday February 27, 2025):
I have some sad news to report on, and that’s that Gene Hackman has died 😞. He died yesterday on Saturday February 26, 2025 at the age of 95 at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He died alongside his wife Betsy Arakawa (who was 64 year old at the time of her death and was about 31 years his senior), in what many news outlets are saying was carbon monoxide poisoning. A lot of people on the Internet 🛜 are suspecting foul play, but investigators so far haven’t found signs of foul play, and I don’t want to give any such speculation any credence at this moment. We lost a great actor yesterday 😔, this comes four months after Tony Todd passed away and about six months after James Earl Jones passed away. We’re losing so many legendary actors left and right, it’s so sad 😞. We
even lost David Lynch last month (Thursday January 16, 2025), and while David
Lynch wasn’t an actor (most of the time), he was a director, he was
still a legend regardless.
I admittedly haven’t seen Gene Hackman in a lot of stuff, this movie, Behind Enemy Lines, is what I mostly know him from. I’ve never seen the Richard Donner Superman movies, I’ve never seen The French Connection 🇫🇷, I’ve never seen Enemy of the State, and I’ve never seen Crimson Tide, though I do have plans to review both Enemy of the State and Crimson Tide. I also have plans to review The Quick and the Dead, a western movie 🤠 directed by Sam Raimi, where Gene Hackman plays the bad guy. I haven’t seen that movie either (just little snippets and clips from it), so when I watch it for my review, it’ll be the first time I ever watch it in full. I know it’s not as well regarded or has many accolades as Gene Hackman’s other western movie 🤠 Unforgiven, which won him an Oscar, but still, The Quick and the Dead has a decent cult following and a lot of people do like it, even if critics at the time of its release didn’t really like it.
Gene Hackman’s last movie was a 2004 political satire comedy film, Welcome to Mooseport 🫎, where he acted alongside comedian Ray Raymano (the same guy ♂︎ who starred in the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond and the same guy ♂︎ who voiced Manny 🦣 in the Ice Age 🧊 movies), and after that, he retired from acting. It does warm my heart ❤️ that he chose New Mexico as his retirement destination since that’s my home state. Even if he chose to live out the rest of his days in Santa Fe rather than Albuquerque where I grew up. He will surely be missed 😢.
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