Unraveling the Twists: A Review of John McTiernan’s ‘Basic’

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#10 in my Ranking of John McTiernan films.

For approximately two-thirds of the film, I managed to follow along with its complex and conflicting plotlines, despite not being fully captivated by it. It reminded me a bit of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, but in a less impactful way. However, as the twists intensified, I found myself becoming increasingly confused and eventually lost interest.

As James Vanderbilt, the screenwriter, mentioned, he aimed to create a movie where viewers wouldn’t be able to guess the killer within the first ten minutes. In that regard, he was successful because this film is virtually impossible to predict based on the evidence presented until around the 95-minute mark. So, I suppose that’s an achievement of sorts.

In simpler terms, Samuel L. Jackson’s character Colonel West leads six soldiers into Panama’s dense jungles for a military drill. However, they fail to reach their designated pick-up location. When the local base commander searches for them, he encounters one soldier carrying another and engaging in gunfire with a third. Colonel West is missing, and the only conscious and communicative soldier remains silent. The base commander then contacts an old friend, a retired Army Ranger and current DEA agent who’s under scrutiny for alleged bribery, portrayed by John Travolta as Tom Hardy, to discreetly interrogate the soldier.

For the upcoming hour or so, we’ll be delving into the contrasting accounts of the survivors regarding the incident. I found this intriguing. My goal wasn’t to uncover the truth, but rather to let their divergent narratives unfold naturally, knowing that none of it was likely the whole truth (this isn’t my first rodeo). One survivor claims Colonel West was murdered by a fellow soldier, while another points the finger at a different one. Each story delves into distinct motives. The first suggests personal grudge, and the second hints at a small drug operation within the base’s hospital. This dichotomy works well, adding depth to the mystery and offering fresh leads.

After this, the movie takes an unexpected turn. It’s revealed that one of the soldiers isn’t who he claims, having swiped another soldier’s dog tags from a fallen comrade in the jungle. This fact, unnoticed by everyone on base, is hard to swallow but I’ll go along with it. The issue lies in how this revelation disrupts the conflicting narratives we’ve heard so far and the movie rushes through explaining them in a hurried montage. From then on, it doesn’t slow down, continuously throwing new surprises at us, including a detail that was earlier hinted to Travolta but left unexplained due to some reasons (something I find frustrating).

As a film enthusiast, I must express my disappointment with the pacing of “Basic.” The sequence of events in the latter part of the movie seems incongruous with what preceded it, leaving the audience bewildered rather than engaged. The speed at which the story unfolds is not the issue; it’s too fast to allow for proper absorption.

However, the real problem lies not in the pace alone, but in the lack of setup for the events that transpire in the final twenty minutes or so. It feels more like a manipulation to mislead certain types of moviegoers into thinking they’re at the beginning of the film, only to be left perplexed by the end. To put it mildly, this isn’t the kind of cinema one would eagerly recommend.

In a nutshell, this film is cleverly made, with each tale being delivered dramatically and shot from the storyteller’s viewpoint, offering clear visual indications of distinct relationships and dynamics. The movie is primarily set at night during a hurricane, and it effectively uses these conditions visually. It might be described as a well-made and thoughtfully filmed movie that happens to be rather silly.

It’s disheartening to think that this might be the conclusion of McTiernan’s filmmaking journey. Following his legal and financial issues, he hasn’t directed a movie since then, and it seems unlikely he’ll secure backing for another one. Despite this, it’s clear that he hadn’t lost his talent for filmmaking; he simply needed a stronger script to work with.

Rating: 1/4

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2025-01-27 00:00