the post Sept. 11 cultural climate, patriotism is back in vogue. I’m glad to see Hollywood is set to cash in. Behind Enemy Lines (Dir. John Moore) is a slick bit of cinematic nationalism at its best (or worst depending on your political perspective). Former art-house-comedian-turned-media-whore Owen Wilson stars as Burnett, a navy pilot during the Bosnian conflict who is tired of flying “pointless” missions. Lt. Reigert (Gene Hackman) is his tight-assed commander, and they are ready to butt heads at the beginning of the film.

Of course, Burnett’s jet ends up seeing things it shouldn’t on a routine fly-by and ends up being shot down … behind enemy lines (sorry if I ruined the surprise for anyone there). From then on the film pretty much consists of Burnett running away from angry silent guys with guns. To give the enemies credit, they don’t say much, but do look really sinister. The film tries to throw in a political subplot when Reigert’s hands are tied down from immediately rescuing Burnett because of the politics involved. Hackman does a good job of playing a repressed military man torn between following the letter of the law and his own instincts.

Unfortunately, this is all pretty tired and formulaic crap going on here. Wilson still has some residual charm left over from his comedic work in better movies (check him out in Zoolander if you get the chance) and he tries to keep Burnett from being a stale character. Instead of being stoic all the time he is stoic and smart-assed (how’s that for originality!).

I would recommend this movie to you if you have an American flag bumper sticker and think that Lynyrd Skynrd is a national treasure. Otherwise this overly saccharine (yet still really violent) movie will probably not move you. On top of everything else the closing music credits include a new song by a man who was formerly one of my favorite musicians, Ryan Adams. The closing montage set to his overblown pseudo-gospel song “Rescue Blues” pretty much left me wanting to yak. I don’t yak a lot. I think that pretty much sums it up.