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Basic
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Basic
Nothing is basic in Basic. Mystery movies do not come more convoluted than this. There are twists and more twists until the story line resembles a pretzel. It's less a whodunit than a what-happened? John Travolta and Connie Nielsen play the film's truth seekers, and each is interesting enough to carry an audience through an overly mechanical screenplay with little on its mind other than deceiving viewers. Director John McTiernan keeps a tight rein on dramatic events, establishing a swift pace and strong characters. But don't expect much depth or nuance.
The slick crime thriller should open strong, thanks in part to the reteaming of Travolta with his Pulp Fiction co-star Samuel L. Jackson. Sony is probably looking at a commercial hit despite the shallowness of the story and its characters.
Writer/co-producer James Vanderbilt borrows somewhat from Rashomon as the film continually repeats incidents from different points of view as those involved give varying accounts of what happened. Six Army Ranger trainees head out into a hurricane for a training exercise along with the thoroughly disliked Sgt. West (Jackson). When they fail to rendezvous at their pickup point, the base commander (Tim Daly) searches for them by helicopter. From that vantage point, he spots Dunbar (Brian Van Holt) carrying a badly wounded Kendall (Giovanni Ribisi), then witnesses Dunbar exchange gunfire with a third recruit, Mueller (Dash Mihok), killing the latter.
Back at the base, neither trainee is willing to talk to investigating officer Capt. Julia Osborne (Nielsen). So, in the first of a number of improbable twists, the commander calls in an old buddy and ex-Ranger, Hardy (Travolta). Bad enough that Hardy is now a DEA agent under investigation for taking bribes, but it turns out he trained under West and hated him as much as the current recruits.
After some pro forma hostility between Hardy and Osborne, Hardy quickly gets the two men chatting merrily away. Only their stories do not jibe. Both are willing to admit that West and the other trainees are dead, but differ considerably on who did what to whom.
The movie in essence has only two locales - the jungle and the base. As Hardy and Osborne go back and forth between the two survivors on the base, flashbacks from the jungle play out the various scenarios as the stories keep changing. The investigation widens when the base hospital's head doctor (Harry Connick Jr.) falls under suspicion of peddling drugs to the trainees.
But the film hews closer to Agatha Christie than A Few Good Men or the more recent Travolta starrer The General's Daughter. This military investigation wants to make no points about the military, its methods or its men. It is simply a mystery in which virtually no one is what he or she seems. Some will find it clever, others merely exasperating.
Travolta delivers a muscular performance, hard-driving and fully confident of his ability to get inside people's heads. Nielsen matches him as for the second time this month -- she also stars as an FBI agent in The Hunted -- she is used as both a foil and tentative romantic interest for a relentless male pursuer of bad guys.
Ribisi is given one too many quirks to play but manages fairly well. Van Holt is effective as the soldier uncertain of how much truth to tell. The others, including Taye Diggs, Cristian de la Fuente and Roselyn Sanchez, bring plenty of vigor to cardboard roles.
McTiernan and his crew build tension nicely, thanks to the fast pace, pounding storm, active camera and histrionics that explode among the actors. In the end, though, the whole thing is one big con job.
Kirk Honeycutt
The Hollywood Reporter
Nothing is basic in Basic. Mystery movies do not come more convoluted than this. There are twists and more twists until the story line resembles a pretzel. It's less a whodunit than a what-happened? John Travolta and Connie Nielsen play the film's truth seekers, and each is interesting enough to carry an audience through an overly mechanical screenplay with little on its mind other than deceiving viewers. Director John McTiernan keeps a tight rein on dramatic events, establishing a swift pace and strong characters. But don't expect much depth or nuance.
The slick crime thriller should open strong, thanks in part to the reteaming of Travolta with his Pulp Fiction co-star Samuel L. Jackson. Sony is probably looking at a commercial hit despite the shallowness of the story and its characters.
Writer/co-producer James Vanderbilt borrows somewhat from Rashomon as the film continually repeats incidents from different points of view as those involved give varying accounts of what happened. Six Army Ranger trainees head out into a hurricane for a training exercise along with the thoroughly disliked Sgt. West (Jackson). When they fail to rendezvous at their pickup point, the base commander (Tim Daly) searches for them by helicopter. From that vantage point, he spots Dunbar (Brian Van Holt) carrying a badly wounded Kendall (Giovanni Ribisi), then witnesses Dunbar exchange gunfire with a third recruit, Mueller (Dash Mihok), killing the latter.
Back at the base, neither trainee is willing to talk to investigating officer Capt. Julia Osborne (Nielsen). So, in the first of a number of improbable twists, the commander calls in an old buddy and ex-Ranger, Hardy (Travolta). Bad enough that Hardy is now a DEA agent under investigation for taking bribes, but it turns out he trained under West and hated him as much as the current recruits.
After some pro forma hostility between Hardy and Osborne, Hardy quickly gets the two men chatting merrily away. Only their stories do not jibe. Both are willing to admit that West and the other trainees are dead, but differ considerably on who did what to whom.
The movie in essence has only two locales - the jungle and the base. As Hardy and Osborne go back and forth between the two survivors on the base, flashbacks from the jungle play out the various scenarios as the stories keep changing. The investigation widens when the base hospital's head doctor (Harry Connick Jr.) falls under suspicion of peddling drugs to the trainees.
But the film hews closer to Agatha Christie than A Few Good Men or the more recent Travolta starrer The General's Daughter. This military investigation wants to make no points about the military, its methods or its men. It is simply a mystery in which virtually no one is what he or she seems. Some will find it clever, others merely exasperating.
Travolta delivers a muscular performance, hard-driving and fully confident of his ability to get inside people's heads. Nielsen matches him as for the second time this month -- she also stars as an FBI agent in The Hunted -- she is used as both a foil and tentative romantic interest for a relentless male pursuer of bad guys.
Ribisi is given one too many quirks to play but manages fairly well. Van Holt is effective as the soldier uncertain of how much truth to tell. The others, including Taye Diggs, Cristian de la Fuente and Roselyn Sanchez, bring plenty of vigor to cardboard roles.
McTiernan and his crew build tension nicely, thanks to the fast pace, pounding storm, active camera and histrionics that explode among the actors. In the end, though, the whole thing is one big con job.
Kirk Honeycutt
The Hollywood Reporter
