Plot
USS Forrestal, an aircraft carrier on station in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, receives a mayday from a civilian cargo ship named Kuwaiti Star. The ship reports that they have been attacked, are on fire and adrift. A deployed Navy SH-3 helicopter attempts to rescue the crew, but is downed by a gunboat and the aircrew is captured.
Meanwhile, United States Navy SEALs Dale Hawkins (Charlie Sheen), James Curran (Michael Biehn), William "Billy" Graham (Dennis Haysbert), James Leary (Rick Rossovich), Homer Rexer (Cyril O'Reilly), Floyd "God" Dane (Bill Paxton), and Ramos (Paul Sanchez) are recovering from a bachelor party. Graham is to be married, but the wedding is canceled at the last minute when the whole team is paged to rescue the captured aircrew.
In the Mediterranean, the leader of the terrorists that shot at the Navy helicopter, Ben Shaheed (Nicholas Kadi), orders the killing of the hostages. One crewmember is killed on the spot and another is beaten up, but the SEAL team arrives just in time to prevent any further kills. Reacting to a suspicious noise, Hawkins breaks silence when he encounters Shaheed in an adjoining room, inadvertently alerting the terrorists.
Shaheed claims to be an Egyptian sailor also being held by the terrorists and is left by the SEALs. As the SEALs evacuate the hostages from the area, Hawkins and Graham stumble across a warehouse containing Stinger missiles. Hawkins attempts to return to the warehouse to destroy the missiles, only to be ordered by Curran to proceed with extraction.
On board an aircraft carrier later that night, the individual team members are debriefed by Naval Intelligence. Curran's decision to leave the Stinger missiles behind is questioned, but Curran retorts that his primary mission was to rescue the aircrew and that Naval Intelligence did not do their job properly. Meanwhile, Hawkins is highly agitated by the mission and has trouble dealing with the emotional upheaval the mission provided. Curran tries to calm him down but is rebuffed by Hawkins.
At the Pentagon, Shaheed is seen in a video interview. The Joint Chiefs of Staff identify Shaheed and his organization, Al Shuhadah. They also identify the interviewer as Claire Varrens (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer), a journalist and author who is half Lebanese. Her questioning of Shaheed yields an admission that he and his group participated in the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983. Shaheed admits the complicity freely, saying they only sought revenge for the bombing of their homes by Navy ships and warplanes.
The Joint Chiefs are briefed on the recent mission and Curran requests permission to destroy the Stingers, but Navy Intelligence has learned they have already been relocated. The SEALs are ordered on R&R and enjoy a game of golf. Curran, brooding over the previous mission, reads a book authored by Varrens. During the golf outing, Graham convinces his fiancée (S. Epatha Merkerson) to try to finish the wedding, regardless of the hazards of Graham's job.
The team receives their orders for the next mission. Naval Intelligence has heard that the Stinger missiles are on board a merchant ship, Latanya, off the coast of Syria. The SEALs deploy from a submerged submarine, USS Nyack, and successfully board the ship, neutralizing two disguised gunmen, only to find out from an EOD team that the missiles are not on board after all.
Frustrated by the recent unreliable intelligence, Curran solicits Varrens's cooperation. Curran takes Claire on a tour of a SEAL training facility and attempts to woo her over an elegant dinner. Claire is initially wary but opens up to Curran after learning that a Stinger has been used to shoot down a peace delegation in Lebanon. Claire provides pictures of men she has encountered who may possibly provide information that may lead the SEALs to the location of the missiles.
While trying to identify possible contacts, Claire tells Curran and Hawkins that one of her contacts is missing, most likely having been kidnapped by the Israelis. Inspired by this, and an outburst by Hawkins, Curran presents the idea of kidnapping a potential informant to his superiors who subsequently recommend the proposal at a National Security Council meeting. A CIA executive at the meeting identifies one of the targets as a known CIA informant who could be co-opted if taken into custody. On that basis, the SEALs are authorized to bring him in.
The SEALs infiltrate the area by performing a HALO jump and swimming to shore. Curran leads several of the team inside a house to secure the informant while Hawkins, Ramos, and Graham remain outside. When Ramos is pinned down by patrolling militia, Hawkins disobeys Curran's order to stay quiet and instigates a firefight. Although Hawkins finally succeeds in killing the militiamen, Graham is killed during the firefight.
Curran informs Graham's fiancée of his death, and a funeral with full military honors is held. After the wake, the men drown their sorrows at a local bar. Hawkins gives a toast to Graham for being the best friend a guy could have. Curran scolds Hawkins for his carelessness that caused Graham's death. Later, Claire arrives at Curran's houseboat to find a still grieving Curran, leading to a night of intimacy. Curran quietly leaves the next morning with Claire in bed.
Disguised as Lebanese militiamen, the SEALs are deployed by submarine to Beirut, coming ashore at its seafront on Zodiac rubber inflatable boats, this time to meet a local resistance fighter from the AMAL militia who will guide them to the building containing the Stingers. Although Dane is killed while attempting to set up a sniping overwatch position, the SEALs locate the Stingers in an old school building in a heavily bombed area of the city. Curran leads Leary and Rexer inside the building to destroy the missiles while Hawkins and Ramos maintain overwatch outside. Hawkins shoots a local gunman questioning him, alerting the terrorists.
Leaving the building, Curran gets shot in the abdomen and thigh. Curran is pinned down near the building door and orders Hawkins to destroy the building regardless of Curran's being in the blast radius. Hawkins disobeys the order and rescues Curran while the other SEALs provide suppressing fire before the building is finally destroyed.
The SEALs commandeer a civilian Mercedes-Benz W123 car and attempt to exfiltrate from the city while evading pursuit by an enemy BTR-152 Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) armed with a twin Browning M1919A4 .30 Cal machine gun mount. The car is eventually hit by machine gunfire and Rexer killed by a stray bullet to the head. Leary, using a recovered Stinger missile launcher, manages to destroy the APC, and the four remaining SEALs escape to the beach.
Shaheed steals a boat from a pier-side fisherman and follows the SEALs across the water. He spots Curran's body floating in the sea. As he attempts to pull the body from the water he is attacked by the SEALs and, in an underwater fight, Hawkins kills Shaheed. The other SEALs take out the remaining topside terrorists and destroy the small boat. With the mission finally accomplished, the designated exfiltration submarine surfaces, recovering the SEALs.
Production
In the winter of 1986 Brenda Feigen, then an agent at the William Morris Agency, was introduced to Chuck Pfarrer through one of her clients. Pfarrer, an active-duty navy SEAL who wrote screenplays in his spare time, had just sold "The Crook Factory", a script about Ernest Hemingway's life. Feigen encouraged him to write a script based on his experiences. After retiring from the SEALs, Pfarrer wrote the script, which Feigen shopped to Orion Pictures, Warner Brothers, and United Artists, hoping to create a bidding war. Orion ultimately purchased the script, with Feigen acting as producer.
Feigen wanted Ridley Scott to direct, but negotiations fell through. Producers met with Roger Donaldson, but he didn't like the script, Richard Marquand was then hired, but his death in 1987 stopped pre-production until Lewis Teague was brought in as a replacement.
Several screenwriters were brought on to do rewrites. Gary Goldman wrote a new draft with Pfarrer, taking influence from the 1961 film The Guns of Navarone , and the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman . Kevin Jarre was approached to do a rewrite, but initially declined due to the 1988 Writer's Strike. Once the strike ended in August 1988, Jarre turned in his draft, which was considered stronger, but the producers had concerns about the script, mainly a line of dialogue that was deemed sexist, and lacking in character depth. Angelo Pizzo was then brought on to flesh out and develop the main characters. Rewrites continued well into production, with uncredited script doctors and even actors Charlie Sheen and Michael Biehn reportedly rewriting scenes [5] [6] Ultimately, only Pfarrer and Goldman received credit on the final film.
The actors underwent a two-week training course in Northern Virginia, taking part in field maneuvers and weapons training. Eight former Navy SEALs were hired as technical advisors to train the actors and occasionally perform stunts.
Principal Photography began in the fall of 1989 in Virginia Beach and near Naval Station Norfolk, in Norfolk, Virginia. In November 1989, filming moved to Southern Spain, utilizing the Mediterranean ports of Tarifa, Cádiz, and Cartagena. The Spanish Navy provided submarines, battleships and helicopters, whereas the Spanish Army provided tanks, APCs and background actors. Chosen because of its Moorish Revival architecture, Cartagena's old inner city stood in for Beirut, Lebanon. Teague used up to seven camera crews filming simultaneously in several action scenes.
