Behind Enemy Lines is a 2001 thriller/war film, directed by John Moore, and starring Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson. Its fictional plot is centered on the story of uncovering a massacre in the Bosnian War of 1992–1995 by an American naval aviator.

Plot

USN Rear Admiral Leslie Riegart's (Gene Hackman) carrier battle group is in the final stages of a NATO peacekeeping deployment, when Naval Aviator Lieutenant Jeremy Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht) and Naval Flight Officer Lieutenant Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson) decide to take their F/A-18F Super Hornet (launched from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson), stationed somewhere in the Adriatic Sea, off course to check out a suspicious target. Their plane is shot down by a SA-13 SAM controlled by Serbian forces led by General Miroslav Lokar (Olek Krupa) and his second in command Colonel Viktor Bazda (Marko Igonda). Lokar is committing a secret genocidal campaign against the Bosniak people in a no-fly zone that the NATO plane violates and photographs. Wanting to avoid being discovered, Lokar has the plane shot down. Burnett and Stackhouse eject from their plane and land in Serb-held territory. Stackhouse was injured from the ejection and Burnett attempts to contact Reigart for help, but a Serb patrol finds Stackhouse; Burnett observes as they interrogate and execute him.

Burnett proceeds to evade the Serbs, narrowly escaping their patrols on several occasions. All the while he maintains contact with Reigart to receive information on his extraction point. The resulting attempt to rescue the downed aviator is complicated by political considerations, which are forced on Riegart by his NATO commanding officer Admiral Juan Miguel Piquet (Joaquim de Almeida), including using his own team for the extraction, rather than the team that Riegart put together. Burnett is stalked by Sasha (Vladimir Mashkov), a marksman, who is sent by Lokar to kill Burnett after realizing that Stackhouse had lied about being on a solo mission when he was being interrogated. Although Sasha locates Burnett while he is radioing the carrier group from atop a dam, Burnett escapes after sliding down the dam face. Burnett makes his way to another supposedly safe location that was meant to be an extraction zone, where he again contacts with Admiral Riegart. Burnett is told to move to a different location with the excuse that his area is unfit for aerial extraction. While speaking to the carrier group, Burnett spots the Serb forces, who have been searching for him and attempts to flee. Admiral Riegart fears that Burnett has been captured or killed, but Burnett is located via satellite imagery, and is seen to be fleeing across a field and then falling to the ground. Riegart questions whether Burnett has been shot by the pursuing Serbs, but instead, Burnett had fallen into the mass graves he and Stackhouse had photographed, and hides under a dead body to avoid detection. The satellite image is lost, but it renews Riegart's determination to rescue the downed navigator. He contacts Sky News to inform them of Burnett's fate.