Contemporary war story about a U.S. Navy flier downed in the demilitarized zone of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the posse of Serbs hot on his heels, and the rescue effort thwarted by a NATO busybody of divided loyalties. (Opportunity, there, to reprise the wistful Vietnam refrain about taking the gloves off and untying one hand from behind the back.) All in all, it affords a good case study, no better or worse than numberless others, of the American (or the Hollywood) Way: the lack of interest in what the NATO pooh-bah calls "the Big Picture," the total focus instead on what we must call the Little Picture, the individual, the hero, the star, the center of the universe -- even if it's only Owen Wilson and not, say, Matt Damon. There is one truly creepy sequence in which the flier's mates on the aircraft carrier (Gene Hackman in command) watch a satellite thermal image of the posse closing in on the flier's prone body, an image that fails to show, in its bare outlines, that the flier is submerged in a muddy mass grave. Though survival details are minimal (food, shelter, and such), the movie is a tolerably old-fashioned chase thriller, all the way to its cavalry-to-the-rescue climax. Tolerably, that is, provided you can tolerate the modish photographic gimmicks of a skipping, sliding, swivelling camera, and the overall complexion of ice-locker blue, and the inflated, slowed-down, drawn-out action. Directed by John Moore. (2001) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.