Behind enemy lines: 2001 film analysis

¶ … Enemy Lines

I am a downed Navy pilot/navigator, on a NATO reconnaissance flight when I was shot down with my pilot by unidentified ground to air SAM missiles. It is the first day Behind Enemy Lines (More, John (dir), 2001, motion picture film), and I have just witnessed government sponsored military soldiers assassinate my pilot, and now I am on the run from the assassins, in fear for my life. I have made contact with my home base, the U.S.S. Whatever parked in the Atlantic. My commander has instructed me to go to a pre-arranged emergency pick-up point, and I am moving as fast as I can travel on foot towards that designated point. In pursuit of me, no more than 30 minutes behind me, is an assassin who wants to prevent me from telling the story of what I witnessed: genocidal murder. Whether or not I make it to the designated pick-up point depends on whether or not I can focus on my training instead of the image of my good friend and fellow pilot who was murdered before my eyes. I must focus so that I can take the story, his story too, back to the world.

I am resting, taking an energy bar, but there's no way that I can travel further in the dark, and I believe I am safe for now, at least until dawn. I'll try to begin before dawn, to try to put a little more time and distance between myself and the assassin.

It will be daybreak in the next hour, and I am moving out, slowly, as it is still very dark and I am afraid to use my light at all lest I attract unwanted attention. Moving slowly, I find myself stopping frequently, listening to the sounds of the forest in layers to see if I can hear the sounds of man. Nothing. I move forward again. Now I have the sense that I am not alone, that I am being observed. It is daybreak, and suddenly a rifle shot rings loud and clear and I can feel the air of the bullet as it passes close to my head. It is the assassin, and now I am running; running for my life!

I have no choice but to attempt a crossing at a damn where, unfortunately, I will be a nearly wide open target. But there has not been shot since the first one at daybreak, and I am a physically fit trained runner, so while I do not imagine myself to be too far ahead of the assassin, I am probably outdistancing him for the time being. If he smokes, then I am leaving him far enough behind that I can cross that damn without being shot. I head for the dam, there is no choice, because the drop zone is on the other side of that dam.

I have miscalculated the assassin's speed, or his sheer determination, and there are shots bouncing around me as I zig-zag my way across the dam. I have miraculously cleared the open space and I am now hidden again by the thick vegetation of the woods. There has to be a way to turn the table on the assassin. I spot a heavy tree stump, uprooted, it has left a deep gouging hole in the earth. I run ahead a short distance, giving the assassin, who is clearly a tracker, something to occupy him. I carefully back-track, fold myself into the hole where the roots of the tree stump were once buried deep in the earth, and I pull the near rotted out stump over me, concealing myself. I wait, the hunted is now the hunter.