User Reviews

This is an ultra low budget action film with the tired old plot of "save my buddy in Vietnam from sadistic commies and finish the mission." The acting is poor in this movie, save for the two male leads. They are merely OK. The idea of Griffiths' friends coming over to help is absolutely ludicrous and the Wolf character should be shot also. If you like lots of military style shooting, you'll like watching this; otherwise, beware! There's lots of hand to hand combat also, giving Griffiths a chance to flex his muscles, more action than usual for this type of film. However, there's nothing new, so what's the point? A good movie to watch with the guys the night before the Super Bowl, after you're all tanked up, but that's about it. *1/2 of 4 stars.

Mike Weston (TIG) is an ex-Marine who just wants to forget the hard times and live it up on his boat in Tahiti with his buddies. Unfortunately, when he discovers that his former partner from his mercenary days, Jones (Mulkey) is being held captive in prison so he can be used as a bargaining chip so a sadistic general can obtain some nuclear triggers, Mike Weston suddenly begins to believe in the awesome power of Mike Weston again. Rousing his washout friends from their sloth, they all undertake the mission of a lifetime: to save their friend and stop the triggers from falling into the wrong hands. Also Weston's sister Kat (Matthews) and taxi driver Phred (Confiado) are along for the ride. What will happen…BEHIND ENEMY LINES? Behind Enemy Lines - not to be confused with the 2001 movie with Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman (or the 1987 Cirio Santiago film of the same name) - starts out seeming ALMOST mainstream, but then it quickly slides into a quicksand of repetitive stupidity it can't pull itself out from. If you've ever seen Missing in Action (1984) or P.O.W. The Escape (1986) - interestingly also known as Behind Enemy Lines - this is pretty much more of the same, except it came out in 1997, when things were souring in the DTV world.

Thomas Ian Griffith (who we affectionately call TIG) looks a LOT like Ben Affleck in this movie. I mean, a LOT. It was the 90's after all, and the 'fleck was on the rise. The fact that it was the 90's might also explain why there's a character named Phred. P-H-R-E-D. He even has a large sign on his taxi proudly proclaiming PHRED is coming. All that being said, The movie is slow and unoriginal, with nary a surprise in sight. The dialogue is so overpoweringly dumb, it feels like it was created by - and aimed for - small children. This is an uneasy mix with shooting and blow-ups in the jungle, not to mention the time-honored Prerequisite Torture. So you can have all the guard tower falls you want, but if the spoken dialogue is basically "nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah", the audience feels insulted and cheated.

Another reason the audience doesn't get hooked in, and thus interested in the plight of the characters, is that there is seemingly a lot of dead time with characters jawing about stuff we don't care about. The main baddie should have been clearly defined and ever-present, and the whole outing streamlined with less blah-blah and more rockin' action scenes. We're not even going to ASK for character development. We realize that might be a bridge too far.

Naturally, it all ends with yet another final warehouse fight, and then disappears off the screen like the smoke from a blown-out birthday candle. And it leaves just as much of an impact on your eyeballs. Sadly, Behind Enemy Lines is just another movie on a screen. It probably sat and collected dust on video store shelves everywhere back in the 90's. It adds nothing new to the table except annoyance. We really didn't like it.

Thought this beaut was the Gene Hackman film. Oops wrong.

Even several large whiskys while watching couldn't disguise the quality of this picture. The editing was very poor but the bit that stuck out for me was in the battle at the end, where the heroes whilst escaping and mowing down scores of hopelessly poor enemy marksmen, stop to have a earnest chat over something. Strolling nonchalantly along tete a tete, all shooting stops, even the enemy, while the heroes parley. Then suddenly realising where they were recommence the battle killing scores more enemy. Never knew you could call time out in a pitched battle. Never saw a rifle magazine changed and even hits on canvas tents were making sparks and flashes.

This film should be age rated. Not suitable for anyone over 12 years old

This is not a Vietnam War movie. It just happens to be placed there but in current time. A Vietnam where the soldiers owe their allegiance to their General, rather than to some state government. Hence, all these dudes getting mowed down for no apparent reason which could possibly benefit them in any way. And the lousy training of a private army accounts for their inability to hit anything they shoot at. Well, that and plot convenience.

At any rate, a Black Op goes wrong and one man is captured. When he is deemed to have no valuable knowledge, he is kept as bait for his buddy, who might. Surprise, surprise, he does show up, bearing some of his ex-Marine buddies and, well, the other guy's sister.

This flick reeks of made for TV. It has some good action and an interesting plot, some fair acting but in total it really just stinks.

5/10

From noted made-for-TV movie czar Brad Krevoy (who has had a string of movies on Hallmark and, in more recent times, GAC Family), Behind Enemy Lines stars Thomas Ian Griffith as Mike Weston, one half of a special ops team sent into modern-days Vietnam with his partner Jones to relieve the Vietnamese of some nuclear triggers. The op goes south (as you might expect), Jones is seemingly killed and Weston barely escapes with his life. Fast forward a year, the USMC brings Weston intelligence that Jones is still alive in Vietnam so Weston goes back in, all guns blazing. On his trail is a motley band led by his sister and some Marine wash-outs and a local, Phred (yes, with a P) who provide much of the comic relief.

Filmed in Phillipines with what appears to be generous assistance from the local military as far as personnel and weaponry goes, this is a decent enough action movie through there are plot holes big enough that you could drive a tank through them. TIG isn't a bad leading man, and Chris Mulkey as Jones is pretty good, too. Some of the bad guys are a little cliched, but still fine. I honestly don't get the hate in some of the reviews I read here. The spectacle is fine. Suspend belief, don't think too hard, enjoy it for what it is, and you'll have a good time. I did!

Vietnam helicopter or wait for tow the Cvn-72 Basic nuclear display or compliance Soviet response