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chapter11 [ 5.5 ]
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"Basic" is, for all the negative press, quite an entertaining thriller. It's unfortunate, then, that it's also stupid. But that's the price we pay. Here, Tim Daly has recruited non-Army interrogator John Travolta to get a cagy cadet to spill the beans about the deaths of four fellow cadets and Samuel L. Jackson. The charismatic Travolta cracks the kid, and we're thrown into a world of intrigue, conspiracy, and irritating ever-changing flashbacks. Like I said, it's pretty stupid, hinging on loads of coincidences and completely implausible plot twists. It's mildly entertaining as a mindless diversion, but then, what good is a mindless diversion if you have to have a mind to follow it? Oh well. "Basic" still gets a passing grade from me, if only for having the balls to ape "Rashomon" on an army base and then follow the whole thing up with a twist ending of that caliber.
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arbuckle [ 0.5 ]
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A rotten picture. Could I be a screewriter? Every other word was the four-letter --F word. I don't go to the movies to hear the F-word throuout the film. In fact, I walked out on it before it was finished. I'm a two-time a week moviegoer. I'm getting ready to retire if I keep seeing pictures with the entire diologue is the F-word. I was in the Army during World War II, and I've never heard worse that that film. After seeing Phone Booth, Identity and Confident, I'm ready to sign off films unless I go to AMC on TV.
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DokBrowne [ 4.5 ]
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There's spoilers, but I don't care and I doubt anyone else does, either
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER: slick-looking, with sharp production values and skilled (if unnecessarily) use of color and lighting (in this case, sepia tones)
BASIC: slick-looking, with sharp production values and skilled (if unnecessarily) use of color and lighting (darkness, forests and military bases during a hurricane)
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER: army suspense thriller
BASIC: army suspense thriller
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER: starring John Travolta as a cocky, flirtatious, and cunning warrant officer
BASIC: starring John Travolta as a cocky, flirtatious, and cunning officer of some kind (this time with a superfluous history of alcoholism)
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER: Travolta's called in to lead a mysterious murder investigation on a military base
BASIC: Travolta's called in to lead a mysterious murder investigation on a military base
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER: With the aide of a sassy female partner at whom Travolta obnoxiously keeps making passes (mostly because they're ex-lovers)
BASIC: With the aide of a sassy female partner (Connie Nielsen) at whom Travolta obnoxiously keeps making passes (mostly because they have nothing else to talk about in their spare time)
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER: They interrogate witnesses who are often lying
BASIC: They interrogate witnesses who are always lying. This is basically the whole point of the movie
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER: We see what really happened via stormy flashbacks that reveal nasty, shocking secrets about important people
BASIC: We see what "really" happened via stormy flashbacks that reveal nasty, shocking secrets about important people
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER: Ultimately, pretty much every actor you recognize in the cast (Travolta, Jackson, Tim Daly, Giovanni Ribisi, Taye Diggs, Dash Mihok, Roselyn Sanchez, Harry Connick Jr.) is in on a big conspiracy
BASIC: Ultimately, pretty much every actor you recognize in the cast (James Cromwell, Timothy Hutton, Clarence Williams III, Leslie Stefanson, James Woods) is in on a big conspiracy
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER: Near the end, Travolta squares off against a surprise villain, the unsuspecting and heretofore friendly base colonel named Bill who really serves no other purpose to the plot
BASIC: Near the end, Travolta squares off against a surprise villain, the unsuspecting and heretofore friendly base colonel named William who really serves no other purpose to the plot
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER: Surprise villain is played by a bland yet affable B-list actor for whom this role is bigger in scale than anything they've done for the past decade, which isn't to say it doesn't suck
BASIC: Surprise villain is played by a bland yet affable B-list actor for whom this role is bigger in scale than anything they've done for the past decade, which isn't to say it doesn't suck
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER: Actor's named Timothy
BASIC: Actor's named Tim
THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER: They kill Timothy
BASIC: They kill Tim
FRAILTY: Because it's being told by flashback, the name of a key character *who's evil* is misidentified as that of a good guy until it's revealed as a stunning twist towards the end
BASIC: Because it's being told by flashback, the name of a key character *who's evil* is misidentified as that of a good guy until it's revealed as a stunning twist towards the end
Except that Basic has yet another surprise before it's over, namely that John Travolta is involved in the whole thing. Apparently he, Samuel L. Jackson, and most of the officers from the "Rashomon" tales are part of a "Special 8" secret team of soldiers who pretend to be dead ('cuz according to the flashbacks, most of them were killed) for some reason that I couldn't figure out, and even though they casually and conspicuously hang around the very base where their own huge cover-up assignment is being probed. I like these twists, from movies like "The Usual Suspects", "The Sixth Sense", and so on, but they make the stories seem gimmicky and shallow once we know. "Basic" comes off as especially quaint when all the cards are finally shown. It shrinks in size, and suddenly you realize how little we actually watched. The movie feels incredibly short and simplistic - we get the 2 interrogations, some banter between Travolta and Nielsen, and 3 big ol' turnaround plot points (each of which takes up about 5 minutes of screen time), aaaaand...little bit of filler here and there, and that's about 90 minutes of movie. Kinda minimal. As a result, none of the actors get to have any fun. Travolta's okay - I feel like the only person in the universe who's still willing to like him (I mean, I don't like the Scientology aspect myself, but whatever happened to tolerance?) - but in keeping with the "that was IT?" theme, he didn't do much of anything, good or bad. Nielsen acts like a badass, and it doesn't work. We see Samuel L. Jackson for, at most, 10-15 minutes, and all he does is shout in his overly familiar "emphaSIZE ev-er-y other. SYLLABLE!" style. I don't know why, but this time, for perhaps the first time, he's really tiresome at it. Maybe because he usually accompanies his bad-itude with interesting motives, or a richer background, or at least Tarantino-quality dialogue to deliver, rather than this cliched drill sergeant crap. John McTiernan should've cast a lesser known actor (R. Lee Ermey's not holding out for "Saving Silverman 2". Or maybe he is) in this small, one-note part. If the "Pulp Fiction" duo were looking to re-team, first of all, they should've chosen a screenplay that put the 2 of them in the same scenes together, y'know, so they can work WITH eachother ('cuz otherwise what difference does it make whether they're in the same movie? That's like the opposite scenario, if, say, Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman wanted to re-team after "Pulp Fiction". Based on what?), and secondly, they should've said no to cameo-sized roles that completely waste their time. Jackson was born to play a drill sergeant, but not a boring one. As for the others...Tim Daly's bland, Giovanni Ribisi affects a curious throaty voice to play a homosexual (and winds up alongside Jackson as the saddest acting casualty, since they're both favorites of mine), Brian van Holt and the rest of the cadets are tolerable (Taye Diggs didn't need to be in this movie, either), and Harry Connick, Jr. provides the most pointless casting decision, as a shady doctor who appears in 2 whole scenes. The minute you see him, you know he's gotta be bad, as this movie uses celebrity casting in the supporting parts (except for those 2 interchangeable cadets) as a sign post for who's gonna matter in the answer to its big mystery. If LL Cool J was cast as the base janitor, for example, by the end he'd be exposed as the mastermind of a secret military gambling ring, which led to the drug dealing, which led to the murders, or something. I'm just saying, there's a difference between Harry Connick, Jr. and an extra.
So I'm giving it a 6?! Yeah. It reminded me of "The General's Daughter", which I enjoyed (and which was a better story, and which made better use of its talent, etc.), and I can just take for what it is: a spruced-up 5-pager from the EC Comics Tales of Suspense line (sans the socio-political commentary). Nothing to recommend, and plot holes galore, but at least it didn't bore me to death like every other expectedly bad release I've sat through in 2003 (National Security, Biker Boyz, Bringing Down the House, A Guy Thing, Deliver Us From Eva). And the ending may be gay, but at least (most) everyone's alive. Surprise endings are usually depressing because your favorite character turns out to be evil, dead, or both. Indeed, it appears that's what's gonna happen here, but then yay, it turns out they're all BASICally good guys. Even super-jerk Samuel L. Jackson comes in all happy, teasing Travolta and even nearly smiling. Small pleasures
Just kidding. This movie is dumb, and not even my unshakeable braindead sentimentality will make allowances for it
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| Weighted Rating | : 5.7 |
| No. Ratings | : 6 | |
| No. Reviews | : 3 | |
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