Basic (2003)

If you thought The Recruit was full of surprises, Basic will spin your head around. Assuming that cleverness is its own reward, this military mystery shares many of The Recruit's strengths and weaknesses, offering multi-layered deception as its dramatic raison d'etre. Copping plenty of machismo attitude befitting a semi-effective thriller from Die Hard director John McTiernan, John Travolta stars as an ex-Army Ranger-turned-DEA agent, recruited by an Army investigator (Connie Nielsen) to solve the fratricide of a reviled Sergeant (Samuel L. Jackson) who was allegedly killed while commanding a Special Forces training mission in the hurricane-swept rainforests of Panama. Two survivors (Giovanni Ribisi in a showboat role, and Brian Van Holt) recall the ill-fated mission as the truth unfolds, Rashomon-style, in a series of repetitive flashbacks. Tricky enough to hold one's attention as it grows increasingly irrelevant, Basic is so enamored of its bogus ingenuity that its ultimate twist is a letdown. A second viewing might prove rewarding, if only to confirm that it all holds together. --Jeff Shannon Amazon.com

Never invade your neighbor

Panama after the Reagan's military intervention. The American armed forces are trying to keep the main passage of south American drug up north to the US under control. But that does not mean it is really what happens. In fact drug is flowing abundantly but not freely. Things have to be organized in the hands of the US citizens here, at least some of them, under a uniform or not. In one of the military special, very special units the sergeant discovers the truth and wants to stop it when on a mission. He will end up dead and several other members too, but the transportation of the drug out of the jungle and onto a plane to the US, along with one of the bodies will nearly succeed, though it will fail because the special agent and the female captain he is teaming with find out some details neither knew that imply the colonel is taking his share to let the drug go through. But nothing is that simple and that captain is going to discover even more and then she will be disarmed - psychologically though not militarily - and the film closes the way it had opened on Ravel's Bolero, that music that is a constant cyclical return of just a few notes. Will she go along with the survivors, and the special agent who seems to be the real coordinator, including of the killing of the sergeant? Difficult to know, though she accepts to eat with the administratively absent ones. It is interesting to go back to these films of an older time. 2003 was the time of another military adventure after a previous one a year before. The film was more or less trying to foresee the future of a military adventure in a foreign country. A real catastrophe because it brings rot right into the deepest inner circle of the republic, the armed forces. Five years later the lesson is clear cut and brilliant. Any military adventure that is based on the invasion of a country in order to bring down the local leader and take him to prison in a way or another for any reason you can imagine, in Panama it was drugs, in Iraq it was weapons of mass destruction, can only end up in rot and a full deception. What did Noriega want to do? Nationalize or take control of the Panama canal? Ronald Reagan when he was the Governor of California said: "the Canal Zone is not a colonial possession. It is not a long-term lease. It is sovereign United States territory, every bit the same as Alaska and all the states that were carved from the Louisiana Purchase. We should end those negotiations and tell the General: we bought it, we paid for it, we build it, and we intend to keep it." When he became the President of the US he toppled Noriega and took control of the canal zone. And in may 2008 the son of the general who nationalized the canal was praised by Bush for all the good work he is doing to develop the canal that is a national enterprise of Panama. You can never stop history. You can slow it down, but not stop it. It will go on in its direction and those who will have tried to stop it and will have slowed it down will also have brought onto the world a dire vengeance. History always has the last word. When you see practically the whole South America in the elected hands of what Ronald Reagan would have called communists you wonder if it was really worth it to invade Panama and to invade Granada and a few other things like that. When we see the Panamanian fiasco thirty years later we can wonder what the Iraqi fiasco is going to be in thirty years. The film is telling us that any invasion of a country produces in the medium run the completely reverse effect than the one expected in the very short run. And in the end it is those who resist the rot, corruption, in other words the innocent, that end up dead in such an adventure.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
September 29, 2008

Interesting, with a nice twist

I always like movies where you don't see the ending coming - where there's always a unique twist at the end. A good way to spend an evening. July 3, 2008

Samuel L. Jackson's performance makes this an alright movie but there are two many plot twists for the average viewer

Basic is another failure of a film from director John McTiernan. McTiernan who used to make good movies like Preadtor, Die Hard & Die Hard 3 hasn't made a good movie since Die Hard 3 spins this confusing film. On one hand I do give the director respect for his attempt to make an uodated version of Rashômon but he film lacks the action sequences McTiernan is known for. The performances by Connie Nelson is horrible and she has a bad accent as for John Travolta he seems bored but as always Samuel L.Jackson delviers the good. The trailer spoils a lot for the film but trust me you try to figure out something in the film your head will hurt. March 25, 2008

Awesome Bad Movie

This is one of those movies that you criticise whenever you're thinking logically...even though you secretly love it when you've got a night alone and feel like watching a movie.

The acting is...passable. The writing is on the same level. The plot is downright silly, but enjoyable at the same time. Enough money went into this picture to leave nothing missing from sound, special effects, or set pieces. The holes in the plot are huge, but the producers seem to have gone with the "if you can't hide it, feature it" school of thought. It's left as an open-ended, figure-it-out-yourself closing at the end (don't try TOO hard).

Look, I'm not going to argue that this movie will be remembered in 50 years. All I can say is I've watched it about 10 times, with everyone from army buddies to a range of girlfriends, to family, all the way to friends from school and training...and it's always a great movie for a rainy night in.

Worth the price. Fun. March 12, 2008

Great potential--ruined

Out of all of the films that I have ***ever*** seen,"Basic" is one with some of the strongest potential. The plot(a DEA agent investigates the dissapearance of one of his former military colleagues and learns two seperate stories about what happened,creating trouble)is just as intelligent as it is brilliant. Add that together with suspenseful scenes,twists,turns,and even dialogue,alongside a top-notch cast(John Travolta,Samuel L. Jackson,Connie Nielsen,Tim Daly,Giovanni Ribisi,Brian Van Holt,Taye Diggs,and Harry Connick,Jr.,with "Die Hard" and "The Hunt For Red October" director John McTiernan being the man behind the camera),and You've got quite a lot to make something very proficient.

Yet,despite all of the strong and admirable qualities of "Basic",there is something about it that fails. As opposed to "going by the book","Basic" takes crucial parts of its story and takes the road less traveled and expected. Sure--it is something that can work great and make a film/television show/television show episode richly executed,if not better than the regular road. But,for "Basic",it completely fails. It is a method that turns "Basic" from being intelligent to being dumb--not making any sense in the end and leaving a bad aftertaste. Sure--it only applies for a few scenes. But--it applies for some of the most crucial scenes of "Basic". Once it is finished,there is no turning back. It is as dominant to "Basic" as anything in a real military base would be.

Overall,a film where the gamble didn't pay off. Worth to see for the unique and creative qualities--but be prepared for a large dissapointment in the end.

2 1/2 stars January 3, 2008

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