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Basic
John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson lead a labyrinthine military thriller. A maverick agent investigates the murder of a brutal Drill Sergeant during a training exercise in Panama, but nothing here is as it seems
With Travolta and Jackson reunited for the first time since Pulp Fiction, expectations for Basic ran high. Sadly, no one comes out of this confusing thriller looking too clever - and that includes audiences stumped by a plot that demonstrates all the logic of a game of Consequences. Tricked out with flashbacks and layers of misinformation, the story takes the form of an elaborate whodunit. When Sergeant West (Jackson) is murdered during a training exercise, ex-Ranger turned DEA agent Hardy (Travolta) is called in to investigate. But what should be a simple piece of detective work is complicated by the fact that nobody's stories match and the army itself is riddled with corruption. It's a reasonable premise but James Vanderbilt's screenplay swiftly clouds the issue with endless bluffs and counter-bluffs as West's murder is revisited, each time from a different point of view. Dunbar (Van Holt) did it. Levi (Ribisi) did it. Pike did it, except Pike is actually Dunbar who may or may not have been present when something else that nobody will talk about happened. With so much confusion rising out of the plot, it falls to Jackson and Travolta to ground the film. Oddly then, they barely have a scene together. Travolta, now sporting a rippling six-pack, is re-invented as a wise-cracking action hero, but with the flab has gone his charisma. Even the gags sound faintly desperate. "Let's skip the witty banter," he says to prickly Captain Osbourne (Nielsen), "and go straight to me coming on to you." It's not just that Basic doesn't make sense - though it doesn't - but that the film never earns the right to spring its surprises and the conclusion bares no relation to what's gone before. Travolta's new physique may be impressive, but that's the only thing here that is. Verdict Infuriatingly convoluted thriller that fails to capitalise on what should have been a winning partnership. Competent action sequences aside, there's little to engage and the unexpected conclusion merely provokes a bewildered: 'What?' |
