Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

When I saw the first Behind Enemy Lines in the theater in 2001, I thought it was a solid action flick that was worth watching, but in no way should be sequelized. But, with an influx of straight-to-DVD sequels, that have absolutely NO ONE from the original film and a similar storyline ("sequoffs" I call them, a hybrid between a sequel and a rip-off), Fox sprung into action and made a second film in 2006 and now a third in 2009, likely as a low-budget way to make some coin. Maybe they don't realize they're putting out garbage or they simply don't care, but flicks like Behind Enemy Lines: Columbia really have no reason to exist.

They start us out with a nifty little history lesson about the corrupt nature of Columbia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, or F.A.R.C., which has been at war against the Columbian government for 40 years and has become powerful by controlling the lucrative drug trade out of Columbia. We then see this lame covert-op thing that really is a surprise party for this squad's leader, Lt. Sean Macklin (Joe Manganiello) and we get little introductions to his Navy SEAL team of men... and the start of all the ultra-corny macho lines were dealt throughout the flick. We then see a guy walking along the streets of Columbia with his beautiful wife and son when they're killed in a village blast and we then find out the husband is a military man Alvaro (Yancey Arias) who has vowed revenge against the F.A.R.C for his loss. Naturally, these two events collide as the SEAL's are sent in on a "recon" mission to find out what's really going down in Columbia. They find out it seems to be a peace talk between the F.A.R.C. and the government army, but nothing seems right about this whole deal and then an army of DIFFERENT men storm the compound and kill almost everyone, and our American friends have to figure out how to get in front of enemy lines. Like that? I just made that up...

Like many of the other films of this direct-to-DVD nature, they had to have made this on a pretty dang low budget. The cast is filled with semi-recognizable names like Joe Manganiello, Keith David, who plays their commanding officer, Scott Boytano, Steven Bauer as the Columbian general who survived the firefight and, of course, WWE Superstar Mr. Kennedy (a.k.a. Ken Anderson), making his non-wrestling acting debut as the super-tough guy Connor Holt, who doesn't shy away from any chance to be as corny as possible. It seems they skimped on almost everything else just to afford those names. The script from Tobias Iaconis, who is not surprisingly a first-time writer, is just littered with this clich&#233d military macho speak, where everyone has to have a tough but funny line every few minutes. There is hardly a shard of actually entertaining dialogue in this whole damn flick and it gets almost painful to watch them slip deeper and deeper into the depths of unoriginal dialogue as the film trudges on. What's sad is that the story itself is actually structured decently and, while it can be a little confusing at times when they get to all these little end twists, it doesn't turn out that bad... kind of.

While the dialogue is bad, the actors don't seem to bring much to the table either. Joe Manganiello is fairly solid as Lt. Macklin, Channon Roe is pretty damn good in his smaller part and Keith David is, well, Keith David and he just really can't be bad in anything... but the rest aren't anything to write home about. Yancey Arias is off and on with his performance, Steven Bauer isn't really in the flick that much, and doesn't make a terribly good impact either, but Mr. Kennedy, making his feature film debut, might want to take on smaller roles for a little while before getting that star on the Walk of Fame ready. I don't know if they're trying to primp this guy as the next The Rock action star, like they tried to do with John Cena, but it's just not going to work. Mr. Kennedy is about as bland on screen as his wrestling name is. For someone of his size, he doesn't have much of a commanding screen presence and it just seems like he's trying way too hard when he's delivering his lines. There's nothing really natural at all about his performance.

The lack of a significant budget is quite evident everywhere else, from the extremely corny special effects, that's most obviously displayed during a laughable scene where they show an RPG coming in a rear-view mirror of a Jeep... and the RPG actually STOPS for a second, while Mr. Kennedy steers the truck out of the way at the last second and the RPG hits a tree and explodes, in one of the most terrible special effects shots I've ever seen in my life. The clumsy editing of the shot didn't help much either, but damn. Another key indicator of the tiny budget was the amazingly AWFUL score that we have to endure. The whole thing just sounds flat-out cheap and doesn't enhance the action at all. It almost takes away from it because it's so damn bad.

Director Tim Matheson, longtime actor most notable known as Otter from Animal House and Van Wilder Sr. from Van Wilder, makes his feature film debut here after directing for several TV series, most notably Burn Notice. I think Matheson does have talent as a director, especially in the action scenes, because they are rather fast-paced and shot nicely. I think he might need to get a different editor, though, but from the way he shoots and handles gunfights, chase sequences and even the nice little close-quarters knife fight we see towards the end between Manganiello and Arias. He definitely has a great style for action films... I just think he needs to pick his scripts a little better.

Behind Enemy Lines: Columbia is just another entry that proves it's all about the dollar sign. You buy a cheap script, hire some mid-level talent and assign a shoestring budget to go make a movie and you'll make money hand over fist in the DVD market. It's just too bad that's all they seem to care about, because most of the flicks in that category - like Behind Enemy Lines: Columbia - might have been something much better than it really was.

We get a collection of six featurettes on these special features and the first one is The Big Guns: Military Action on Film. This featurette deals with all the training these actors went through for the film. The majority of this is told through the point of view of Tom Minter, a 20-year Marine Corps veteran who was the consultant and trainer for all the guys on the team. There is also a brief bit about the knife fight that Yancy Arias and Joe Manganiello do in the film, and some of the choreography behind that. It's a six and a half minute segment and it's not too shabby.

The next feature, Columbia Norte: Onn Location in Puerto Rico, deals shooting on location in Puerto Rico and a lotof this has some actors from the film like Yancey Arias and others that were from the area and coming back to film in PR. We also hear from Steven Bauer and others who were from Cuba talking about the similarities between where they grew up and what goes on in the movie. We go in to a lot of the locations they found in Puerto Rico and stuff like that and this seven minute featurette is kind of cool, but kind of boring as well.

The Rockets Red Glare: Explosions Explained is the next featurette and its mainly this thing where they ask different people from the cast and crew talking about their favorite explosion from the film, and talking to some of the effects crew some as well, talking about either makeup effects or blowing stuff up and things like that. It was pretty cool seeing what they had to do to blow up the car. They basically gutted the car and take it apart, putting the frame back together with zip-ties, which I thought was pretty cool. It gets pretty corny at the end, with this montage of explosions set to some terrible music, but this nine-minute featurette is pretty slick.

The Art of the Fall: Stunt Secrets and this goes into the close-quarter combat training and we also heard from Joe Manganiello's stunt double, Mr. Kennedy's stunt double and there's an interesting bit with Mr. Kennedy where his stunt double performed the reverse 180 in this big Mercedes and Kennedy actually tried it once and nailed it. Still, all this stuff is glossed over quickly and this six-minute featurette is decent, at best.

Comedy in Columbia: Bloopers and Other Relief is really not that funny, doesn't have many "bloopers" and is only two and a half minutes long. I'd skip this if I were you.

The last thing we get here is Stars With Stripes: Casting Joe and Mr. Kennedy. It's a nice little six and a half minute thing that is less about casting them and how they were actually cast in the movie, but it's kind of a little double mini-bio thing with Manganiello and Kennedy and how they meshed on the set. I thought it was interesting that Mr. Kennedy actually left while the film was in production to head to Orlando to participate in WrestleMania 24. There is some decent stuff in this six minute deal that ends these features out nicely.

The disc is presented in the alternate widescreen format, in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio.

The sound is handled through the Dolby Digital format.

Well, I just got a screener disc, but the front cover has Mr. Kennedy on the front with a big American flag in the background and a lame tagline below. I'm assuming that, since WWE Films is involved, they put Mr. Kennedy on the front cover, with some faint shots of the team in the background... even though Mr. Kennedy isn't the lead here by any means and, since this is, you know, his first movie ever, it's even weirder.

This isn't the worst straight-to-video sequel thing that I've seen, since there is plenty of action, solid direction and a decent performance here and there... but it certainly isn't the best either.