This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Holiday Mission
Plot Overview
An uneasy truce to a chimerical, Hollywood
version of the Bosnian War is about to be consummated with a peace
treaty when two Navy airmen are sent on a sortie to photograph
a harmless lake with their new digital camera. Flight Navigator
Lt. Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson)
persuades his pilot Lt. Jeremy
Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht) to divert over a no-fly, demilitarized
zone to recon some suspicious activity seen on their scope (“We're
not supposed to fly that sector, Chris. The brass will have a
sh!t-fit.”) General Miroslav Lokar (Olek Krupa)
whose Bosnian-Serb Fourth Army Patrol is engaged in disallowed maneuvers
orders the Navy fighter jet shot down putting one crewman on
the run and the other up for execution.
In the prosperous Muslim
town of Hač, “Lokar killed everyone, children
and women, and buried them up there in the hills.” Serb Volunteer
Guard soldiers consigned the massacred civilians to mass graves. Then
they set about reforesting the war-scarred escarpment with rows of
saplings. Changing weather brought a snow melt, and the water having
no ground cover to absorb it, found new paths to run off into, cutting
a gully through the ad hoc grave site, exposing the bodies to the
plane's camera and to the American's eyes. The airman needs to return
with this evidence, but his rescue is hampered by politics.
Ideology
Lt. Burnett had pooh-poohed this supposed “war” they're engaged in, because for him it's been nothing but endless drills and false alarms, at most a police action in an unpopular environment. He says, “Everybody thinks they're gonna get a chance to punch some Nazi in the face in Normandy, but those days are over. They're long gone.” His commander Admiral Leslie Reigart (Gene Hackman) thinks that's “not the best attitude,” that it can get him killed if he doesn't take his deployment seriously. From personal experience I was communicating with radio amateurs in Belgrade during the Bosnian War, and they sure thought it a war when they were being “bombed by NATO bandits.” I got that from the horse's mouth.
The gig is up when Chris observes from
a distance what happens to his captured pilot whom Lokar considers
a liability (“They killed my pilot because we took pictures
of the graves.”) As writer Steve Berry puts it, “Those
national interests … require extraordinary measures to
safeguard. Not ones I normally resort to within our borders, but here,
I have no choice” (196.) Chris's knee-jerk reaction to what he
witnesses from a distance is a shout of, “NO!” alerting Lokar's
men there's another downed airman out there, and the chase is on. It's an
instance of, (Prov. 30:32) “If
thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought
evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth.” Now he's got to stop whining
and follow his commander's advice, “Zero-six, you've been shot down,
life is tough. You're a combat aviator! Start acting like one! Remember
your training, put some angles between you and your pursuers. Evade and
survive and we will bring you home! You got that? We WILL bring you home!”
Production Values
“” (2001) was directed by John Moore. Its screenplay was written by David Veloz based on a story by Jim Thomas & John Thomas. It stars Gene Hackman, Owen Wilson and Gabriel Macht. Hackman's talent was wasted here, Wilson is coming into his own, and Macht made a likeable pilot who ended as a lot of them do. Vladimir Mashkov plays a cookie-cutter villain who won't haunt anybody's dreams, but his prison-hardened tracker Sasha (Vladimir Mashkov) is a work.
MPAA rated it PG–13 for war violence and some language. Too
much cursing in God's name to suit me. The DoD gave the film crew access to a couple carriers,
which resulted in a lot of authenticity, but then they added dramatic
embellishments for the sake of the story. The pre-flight sequence on
the F–18 included arming the ejection seats, a step that was
neglected in Maverick's movie. The relentless
action is broken up with comedic moments. It's 1¾ hours long.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
This was an altogether satisfying movie in the American hero vein. If you're into that kind of thing, you won't go wrong here, though there be bigger productions out there. Female presence is minimal. Historical basis is loose.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action-packed. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Berry, Steve. The King's Deception. Copyright © 2013 by Steve Berry. New York: Ballantine Books, 2013. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org