Owen Wilson plays it straight, as he crash lands "Behind Enemy Lines", in a feature that has many first-timers at its helm, as revealed on the DVD release.
TECHNICAL FEATURES
Picture The image has been graded down quite considerably to leave a palette of cold greyish blues and dark earthy colours. It intentionally has a slight graininess to it and looks good on disc with an icy transfer that accentuates the remote and dangerous feel of Owen Wilson's location. Put simply, it looks dandy.
Sound As discussed on commentary track one, the release date of the film was brought forward, which left little time to do a sound mix for the film. Despite this there are both Dolby and DTS 5.1 mixes on the DVD. Both convey aggressive bass-enhanced war effects with gusto, although the DTS effort has a greater spatial depth to it. Put simply, it kicks butt.
SPECIAL FEATURES
Audio Commentary One Director John Moore and editor Paul Martin Smith get together for an honest commentary that covers the budgetary constraints and harsh fast shoot. Shooting on the aircraft carrier was clearly a dangerous experience, with three experienced navy deck hands sustaining serious injuries in the week that the film crew were there. Moore had to try and stay out of the way, and shoot what he could with a skeleton crew while trying not to get limbs blown off from jet fighter exhausts.
Moore briefly points out that many of the characters and events in the film are based on fact, to the point that character names had to be changed at the last minute. The film was shot in Slovakia, a country that's apparently filled with tanks, but low on fuel. As long as the film crew could fuel them, the army was happy for them to use them.
Audio Commentary Two Track two features producers John Davis and Wyck Godfrey. Both have worked on the plot of this film for six years. The way they discuss it you'd think that they had a unique concept, but the plot of "Bat 21" (starring Gene Hackman) is very similar. Ironically the budget for the film was secured once the producers got Gene Hackman on board. At $40m, this is classed as a low budget action feature for a big studio, so the crew costs were kept low with a first time director, director of photography, production designer, and composer. Sadly the composer had to be replaced but the rest worked out OK.
Featurette This featurette tries to be as cheesy as you'd expect from a promo video, but there's actually some quite interesting behind-the-scenes footage of the shoot on the aircraft carrier, and of Owen Wilson getting a hairy scary supersonic jet ride.
Additional Special Features Also on the DVD are seven extended and deleted scenes, and a pre-visualisation of how the ejection sequence would look in the film.
Region: 2
Chapters: 28
Ratio: 2.35:1 (anamorphic)
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1
Technical Features: Scene selection and English captions for the hearing impaired.
This DVD was reviewed on a JVC XV-S57 DVD player.
