Certification. 15
Running Time. 1 hour 38 mins
Director. John McTiernan
Cast. Tim Daly, Samuel L. Jackson, Connie Nielsen, Giovanni Ribisi, John Travolta, Brian Van Holt.
Rating. 58%
Review.
“Osborne, murder is basic. No conspiracies, no grand mysteries, no puppet masters behind the scenes pulling the strings. Everyone is capable of murder.”
These lines are spoken by DEA agent Tom Hardy (John Travolta) in the military thriller, Basic. However, the film’s storyline is anything but, as director John McTiernan twists a seemingly straightforward plot about an Army Ranger training exercise gone awry into a complex and conflicting web of intrigue.
Basic aspires to join the ranks of The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense and Fight Club, and others like them - films with seismic plot twists. But in this instance the plot is too complicated for its own good and the film effectively bamboozles itself, careering from one irrational set piece to the next. Much of the story is told in flashback from various characters’ point of view, similar to Edward Zwick’s more engaging Courage Under Fire.
Basic did, at least signal, a slight return to form for the director of Predator, Die Hard and The Hunt For Red October, following the appalling Rollerball in 2002. Sadly though, Basic proved to be McTiernan’s last film before being sentenced to 12 months in prison as a result of a perjury conviction,
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