Behind Enemy Lines

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Behind Enemy Lines is a 2001 movie starring Owen Wilson as Lt. Chris Burnett, a Flight Navigator who gets shot down over Bosnia and has survive while trapped behind enemy lines. The Serbian force that is after him and which summarily executed his pilot is especially tenacious because during their recon mission they inadvertently photographed mass graves. Running ensues.

Tropes used in Behind Enemy Lines include:
  • Covered in Mud: Happens to the protagonist when he is forced to hide among the bodies in a mass grave.
  • Fake Nationality: All of the Serbian characters were portrayed by Croatian actors, probably because no Westerner can tell the difference and no self-respecting Serbian actor would play the stereotypical role of the bad guy terrorist.
    • To be honest, no Serbian or Croatian person could tell the difference, either. Not even by accent, since accents depend on where the person is from, rather than what ethnicity they are - a person born in Belgrade is going to have a different accent from a person born in Bosnia or Croatia, but people from a certain part of Croatia or Bosnia will have the same accents regardless of their ethnicity.
  • Guy in Back: The hero is a Weapons Systems Officer, not a pilot.
  • High-Speed Missile Dodge: Subverted in that it doesn't work.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: At the end, Burnett is fleeing through open ground in the snow but isn't hit once by the fire from dozens of Serbian paramilitary troops, mobile anti-aircraft batteries, snipers, and even a tank. Instead only one poor U.S. Red Shirt in a helicopter is hit by the salvo of destruction.
  • Keep It Foreign: Invoked by Roger Ebert in his review of this movie, also provides the page quote.
  • The Yugoslav Wars: The setting for this story.
  • Trapped Behind Enemy Lines: Obviously