BASIC
A FILM REVIEW BY ALEX GRANT
|
BASIC
John Travolta- Samuel L Jackson
Connie Nielsen
Directed by John McTiernan
'...a
twisting, writhing snake of a tall tale '
|
John McTiernans
new military drama is so deliberately deceitful in its depiction of
a bizarre lethal fiasco of a top U.S. Rangers training mission
deep in the jungle that it utterly infuriates at times. Set partly in
the rain forest of the Panamanian Cordillera it seems to focus upon
the hatred felt by trainees for their bull-headed, unforgiving, and
sadistic black leader Sgt .West (Samuel L. Jackson )
The movie is as assiduously devious and no less playfully misleading
than is the obtuse and seemingly callous misconduct of the martinet
non-com. who picks on black recruit Pike ( Taye Diggs ) cruelly, thus
appearing to drive him to fragging his superior for revenge. That is
accidentally shooting West in the back on maneouvres.
Enter DEA interrogator Tom Hardy ( John Travolta ) : a seemingly corrupt
and drunken former Ranger himself, roped in to get thetruth
about the fragging from one of the two exhausted and broken survivors
of this tragic jungle sortie. Hardy immediately locks horns with Captain
Julia Osborne ( Connie Nielsen ) a tough no-nonsense military advocate
brusquely pushed to the margins of the investigation by her Colonel
( Tim Daly) Hardy is clearly an expert and a master at his inquisitorial
job but he is also strongly suspected of having become far too close
to his official prey: the drug-lords and big-shipment traffickers who
have always adopted an accommodating, graft-ridden Panama as their direct
access route to the drug-happy U.S. populace. Under a cloud Hardy has
to prove himself to his superiors all over again. Or so it seems on
the surface.
The audience is presented in rapid succession with a handful of confusing
flashbacks as to who killed whom in the jungle, and why they might have
been driven to do so, Yet none of this multiple mayhem may have happened
at all. Every participant has an excuse or two and a half-truth or two,
all of which pour down upon us as thickly and as swiftly as do the pelting
rain drops in the forest. The events repeatedly re-enacted all took
place in a bewildering hurricane-force, one helluva downpour that obscured
and heavily veiled almost every second of action once the Rangers absailed
down into the depths of the jungle.
Understandably Capt. Osborne is soon all at sea and completely bewildered,
unable to trust a single one of her close associates, including a former
lover, a physician, who may have been in cahoots with her Colonel in
trafficking illegal substances in bulk. Eventually after a series of
astonishing revelations that oblige her and us - the gullible spectators
- to suspect Hardy of himself being the degenerate drug- kingpin she
uncovers the truth about this plot to uncover an even bigger plot. Or
is there an even larger conspiracy too?
BASIC will undoubtedly try your patience since it revels in you the
viewer having to struggle effortfully to pin down a twisting, writhing
snake of a tall tale with only a pair of chopsticks, as it were. If
you can enjoy wrestling with a Rubiks Cube of a film; one that
only falls into sync after 95 minutes of juggling and manly manhandling;
this contrived exercise in suspense will be worth your while. But dont
expect to be fully satisfied with its pat and preening conclusion. As
though Travolta could really be a bad guy and not merely a bad boy !
A bad boy full of mischief who gloats over his cleverness and makes
us all feel like suckers. You may actually resent being fooled for so
long by the filmmakers.They just love to keep you hanging out to dry
like yesterdays laundry.
© Alex Grant March 2003
alexgrantreviews.@hotmail.com
MORE REVIEWS
©
Hackwriters 2000-2003
all rights reserved