Director: Anders Banke
Writer: Michael Wright (Screenplay) Tom George (Story)
Starring: Ed Westwick, John Hannah, Corey Johnson, Tom Wisdom, Pawel Delag, Ekaterina Vladimirova
Plot: In the frozen, war torn landscape of occupied Poland during World War II, a crack team of allied commandos are sent on a deadly mission behind enemy lines to extract a rocket scientist from the hands of the Nazis.
Runtime: 1 Hour 32 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: War 101
Story: Enemy Lines starts when American General McCloud (Johnson) turns to British Colonel Preston (Hannah) to use his men to help Major Kaminski (Westwick) looks to extract a rocket scientist Dr Fabien (Delag) from Poland under the guard of the Germans, to bring back to the American’s.
Once the team has Fabien, the next challenge is getting home, with Kaminski needing to use his connections in Poland to elude the Germans that are now hunting down the people that have their scientist.
Thoughts on Enemy Lines
Characters – Kaminski is the American Major that is leading the mission, his connection to Poland is key to the mission with him being fluent in Polish and knows how important this mission will be, he shows the leadership, while making the tough decisions along the way. Colonel Preston is the British Colonel that must select a unit to support Kaminski, he picks his best and gives them everything they can to achieve the mission working with the General. General McCloud arranges the mission, he watches over the potential outcome with Preston, with them always planning their ideas to survive the situation. We do get to meet the unit, the resistance soldiers that are helping in the extraction, as well as the rocket scientist that is being extracted, who has become conflicted with the potential weapon he could create.
Performances – Ed Westwick in the leading role is the strongest part of the mission, with John Hannah and Corey Johnson doing everything right from the war room scenes. Elsewhere we don’t have the strongest acting, but most of the characters are meant to just be part of a military unit.
Story – The story here follows a mission which sees British and American soldiers going behind enemy lines in Poland to extract a scientist who could help swing the victory of war and we follow the mission unfolding. This story does show the mission happening, it is a behind enemy lines mission, only it doesn’t feel as intense as it could do, we get to see how both sides are looking to capture the scientist. The story plays out like most stories in this genre, where we see how what could be a routine mission, does require something else to happen to make it a success, which should give the leader of the mission a dilemma about what to do if a problem arises.
War – The film is set in World War II, with the mission being targeted in Poland, the war sequences being routine military positions with bullets flying.
Settings – The settings are used for military positioning for the battles trying to get their hands on the scientist.
Scene of the Movie – The extraction.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Not enough John Hannah.
Final Thoughts – This is a war movie that doesn’t become as intense as the mission implies, though it does like to look at the bigger decision of what the scientist could bring to the war.
Overall: Routine War Film.
Signature Entertainment presents Enemy Lines on DVD & Digital HD from May 4th
