Owen Wilson plays Lieutenant Burnett, a young jaded Navy pilot who is getting ready to quit the navy after seven years. He and his friend Stackhouse are sent out on a holiday mission by the general to take reconnaissance pictures of the land. Unfortunately, they accidentally go off-course and take pictures of an illegal military base. They are then shot down by the enemy and now Burnett must try to survive behind enemy lines and get rescued by the military.
    This movie was released about a month after the 9/11 tragedy, so it was no coincidence with the abundance of patriotism, that this movie was a smash at the box-office. This is a rather unusual war movie and a pretty good one. First of all, I bought Owen Wilson as an action-hero. He has that quality. Gene Hackman gives a great job as the general who has an admiration for Burnett. The movie gives us a huge onslaught of action sequences. One of which when Burnett is first discovered by the Bosnian army and is shot at with immense fire. The movie gives us an array of surreal scenes, some of which were obviously inspired by "Fail Safe", a superior war movie. We get some still scenes and some weird flashbacks that make this movie a head-trip to watch, it was pretty weird because I figured this for a conventional war movie.

The problem with this movie is that it's too hokey at times and takes a turn for the corny, when the general played by Gene Hackman wants to rescue Burnett, he is outranked by his NATO superior, but attempts to rescue Burnett regardless, ultimately sacrificing his rank as general. I found it ridiculous how the Bosnian army had tanks, helicopters, soldiers, and snipers on Owen Wilson's character yet never actually touch him, yet all he has to do is point a gun and shoots a soldier easily. This movie tends to take ridiculous moves like that.

A fun, action-packed if not flawed movie with poor storylines and characterization.