BASIC

4/10

USA 2003 : John McTIERNAN : 98 mins

The title is presumably ironic – so over-complicated is this khaki-clad thriller from a director whose Die Hard glory-days seem a long way off (though even this misfire must be counted a step-up after McTiernan’s dire Rollerball remake.) Set, for no good reason, in rain-drenched Panama circa 1999, a pair of interrogators - drug-cop Hardy (John Travolta) and army captain Osborne (Connie Nielsen) - grill Dunbar (Brian Van Holt) and Kendall (Giovanni Ribisi), the sole survivors (Brian Van Holt, Giovanni Ribisi) of a jungle training exercise that went badly awry. Needless to say, the soldiers' stories don't tally, and this is only the start of a dizzying series of twists.

Rather too dizzying for most viewers, in fact, and even the most attentive audiences may struggle to keep up with the bombardment of shock revelations that constitutes the final half-hour – when one character complains he has “a lot of shit to digest”, we heartily sympathise. It’s a shame, because the direction and editing are fairly slick, while newly-buffed-up Travolta visibly revels in Hardy’s fast-talking wise-cracks. His Pulp Fiction co-star Samuel L Jackson likewise makes the most of his bellowingly declamatory role as a hard-ass instructor, though the relatively unknown Van Holt (also good in Confidence) makes at least as much impact as the taciturn Dunbar. But even these performers’ full-blooded efforts ultimately can’t salvage a movie so frustratingly hamstrung by a screenplay (by James Vanderbilt) which sacrifices tension and plausibility on the altar of pointless smart-arsery. Does anybody really understand films like this?

11th June, 2003
(seen 10th June: Odeon Gate, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

by Neil Young

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