“Behind Enemy Lines” is meant to tell a thrilling tale of survival but when the survivor seems incompetent, it becomes hard to get engaged with the film. It’s not thrilling, it’s not exciting and it’s not entertaining.

In “Behind Enemy Lines”, an American navy navigator (Owen Wilson “Wedding Crashers”) gets shot down in Bosnia by Serbians and finds himself on the run from them. Over the course of the film, this American serviceman survives by such unimpressive means as being lucky enough to not get shot at due to enemy incompetence. His commanding officer, Admiral Reigart (Gene Hackman “Superman: The Movie”, “Crimson Tide”), struggles to know what to do when orders come in preventing him from mounting a rescue operation.

Owen Wilson is terrible here. You can’t get involved with the character here as he does nothing remotely interesting. Gene Hackman is really good but the character is really dud and doesn’t get to do that much, in fact his character’s main purpose is to basically just sit there and not be knowing what to do. The bad guys are pretty unmemorable and their incredible ability to not kill or capture Wilson’s character despite him not really doing anything to secure his own safety, is something that only weakens them more.

“Behind Enemy Lines” has a few moments that seem kind-of interesting but I don’t like the acting, I don’t like the way some of it is filmed (when you see it, you’ll know what I mean) and I don’t like how this navy navigator does practically nothing to defend himself. It’s a lot of walking and a lot of enemies that can’t hit a target, that’s what “Behind Enemy Lines” consists of and it’s so disappointing and ruins some real potential. With so many better war movies out there (such as “Black Hawk Down”), I can’t see why anybody would really enjoy “Behind Enemy Lines”.