As long as I’ve been watching examples of needless, cinema bypassing movie sequels to long defunct franchises, I’ll never truly understand why they’re allowed to drag on so much. Oh sure, there’s a few diamonds that can be located in the rough, but the best you can usually hope for is that the newest unnecessary installment is at least marginally better than the last. However, adding another paradoxical edge is the fourth installment of the Behind Enemy Lines franchise that seems to hold its own series in such low disregard, the “Behind Enemy Lines” title has now been reduced to subtitle status which just creates an incredible amount of questions. If the brand name now isn’t strong enough to put before the semi colon anymore, why use the Behind Enemy Lines title at all? It’s not like there’s anything actually connecting you to the previous movie that range from starring the likes of Owen Wilson and Gene Hackman to eventually featuring WWE wrestler, Mr. Kennedy, so why stick with it?
We may never know what the answer is (or even care), but strangely enough, Seal Team 8: Behind Enemy Lines actually has a few surprises that even I didn’t see coming.
As the movie starts and familiarises us with whatever political shit show we’re about to be hurled into next (the Congo if you were wondering), we meet the titular SEAL team as they prep for their next mission by overtly doing various overtly masculine things. However, they soon focus up a little quicker when they find out that they’re being sent to Africa for a covert mission that might be a little on the unsanctioned side. It seems there’s an asset or two to be rescued before they’re executed by flamboyant warlord Genral Ntonga, but while in the midst of saving the day, the almost indistinguishable SEAL team soon discover they’ve stumbled upon the chance to put the kibosh on a shifty sale of a massive quantity of weapons grade uranium.
With the mission being overseen by the no-nonsence Rick’s back in a control room flanked by multiple screens and candy eating drone pilots, the team forge ahead with their new mission with the aid of the freed Zoe Jelini, the woman who’s been feed the military intel on Ntonga from the start. However, they’re not far into it when a string of disasters strike them that range from seeing one of their group get vaporised by a well aimed RPG, to accidently getting fired on by their own drone pilots, but as they attempt to lick their wounds there’s one more betrayal that threatens to put them down for good. Trapped behind enemy lines with no extraction coming until they can prove that they’re still alive, the remaining members of SEAL Team 8 have to band together and take down the real threat before this “Anderson Cooper bullshit” (their words, not mine) gets catastrophically out of control.
Oh hey, while I was tumbling down the rabbit hole about the usage of the “Behind Enemy Lines” brand name on the poster, I totally forgot to reference the other confounding thing on it. Plastered literally all over the one-sheet for this film is the sight of a defiant Tom Sizemore in front of a billowing Stars and Stripes raising an automatic rifle to no doubt smite the enemies of the grand old US of A. However, if you watch the movie; it soon becomes clear that Sizemore not only doesn’t wield a gun at any point in this movie, but he doesn’t even leave the war room where he barks his strangely ineffectual orders. Instead, the action is provided by yet another team of warriors that can only be told apart by either their ethnicity or when someone tells out their name when they are killed. In fact, the only way I could tell which of these identikit military dude was the main character before the death of some of his buddies started whittling down the cast list is that he gets to bone the French woman they only just rescued earlier that day. Still, while the perfectly monikered Lex Shrapnel (yes, that is the actor’s actual name) ultimately proves to be a decent action foil, we still have to go through the DTV war/action basics as the SEAL team routinely cleave through their enemies like a hot knife through butter.
Yes, it’s standard, dumb, flag waving stuff that makes the Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare video games seem like gritty documentaries in comparison, but things immediately look up when you realise that Roel Reiné is the man behind the carnage. For those unfamiliar with his work, Reiné seems to be responsible for approximately 1/3 of all DTV action sequels that have been made over the past fifteen years and as such has kind of established himself as the Temu Michael Bay. Yes, the endless military stuff is formulaic and a little bit repetitive, but the seasoned director handles the gunfights, an actual boat chase and countless RPG launches with a certain sense of slick style that add a filmmaking sheen not seen in the franchise since the first film. Yes, it may rely way too much on suddenly switching to slow motion at random spots like it wants to grow up to be 300, but even if it strangely fails to be engrossing, you can’t help but be thankful that some production values have finally found its way back to a franchise that was regularly scraping the bottom of the barrel.
OK, yes, any and all moments that require a modicum of tact is botched magnificently, especially when a luckless team member is spectacularly blown into human flavoured yogurt in slo-mo while an African lament wails over the soundtrack. However, as we get into the last halt hour of the film, a funny thing happens that suddenly rocketed my attention levels through the roof and actually caught me by surprise to such a degree, I have to give the flick its flowers. As the climax looms, Reiné suddenly seems to turn to us and say “I’m kinda bored making a cheap Michael Bay military film now; how’d you guys like me to make a cheap John Woo gunfight movie instead?” and before we’re able to give a confused nod, he’s suddenly shifted the entire tone of the film into a frenetic, crazed gun battle that sees Shrapnel ditch his army gear and suddenly take on an African city on his lonesome armed with a single handgun. Cars fly through the air and explode, Shrapnel kills dozen of men while barely reloading and explosions that would have taken him out in his SEAL gear barely seem to faze him now he’s dressed in a hoodie. It’s preposterous, dumb and utterly unlike anything that’s been in the film up until now – and it just happens to be fucking awesome. Why the entire film couldn’t have been this freewheeling I don’t know, but we even get a surprise villain (who isn’t actually that much of a surprise) and a cool/idiotic moment where a baddie gets their just desserts thanks to a carelessly placed bottle of acid.
Maybe I’m being far too kind just because Seal Team 8: Behind Enemy Lines’ random, last reel lurch into heroic bloodshed is better than parts 2 and 3 combined, but on the other hand, if I’m genuinely having fun, then what’s to stop me embracing it even if it takes an hour of overfamilar army antics to get there? If you’d told me midway through the third film that this rather motley franchise would somehow end on a moderately positive note, I’d understandably call you a fucking liar. However, for that brief, shining moment, a Behind Enemy Lines sequel gets ahead of the game.
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