| Basic | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | John McTiernan |
| Written by | James Vanderbilt |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Steve Mason |
| Edited by | George Folsey Jr. |
| Music by | Klaus Badelt |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by |
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Release date |
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Running time | 98 minutes |
| Countries |
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| Language | English |
| Budget | $50 million[1] |
| Box office | $42.8 million[2] |
Basic is a 2003crime-actionthriller film directed byJohn McTiernan, written byJames Vanderbilt, and starringJohn Travolta,Connie Nielsen andSamuel L. Jackson. It is the second film starring Travolta and Jackson afterPulp Fiction. The film follows aDEA agent solving the mystery of a bungled training exercise that leads to the deaths of multipleArmy Ranger trainees and their instructor.
Basic received negative reviews from critics regarding its overall plot and numerous twist endings. The film was also abox-office bomb, grossing only $42.8 million worldwide against a $50 million budget.
As of 2026, it is McTiernan's most recent film given his subsequentcriminal charges and eventual incarceration related to wiretapping.
On alive fire exercise in the jungles ofPanama, a team ofArmy Rangers trainees is led by instructor andMaster Sergeant Nathan West, tasked with traversing the jungle in hurricane weather, attacking pop-up metal targets with live ammunition, and then reconvening at a small bunker.Sergeant Ray Dunbar emerges from the jungle carrying woundedSecond Lieutenant Levi Kendall. The two men are pursued by Sergeant Mueller, whom Dunbar kills inself-defense. Although no other bodies are found, West's team is presumed dead. Dunbar refuses to talk toMilitary Police investigatorCaptain Julia Osborne, insisting on speaking to a fellow Ranger from outside the base by drawing an 8 on a piece of paper. Thepost commander,Colonel Bill Styles, tasks his friend Tom Hardy (a skilled interrogator, ex-Ranger and nowDEA agent) to assist Osborne.
Interrogating the survivors, they learn that West was infamously abusive, particularly towards trainee Jay Pike, whose penchant for disobedience enraged West, potentially inspiring Pike to stage the murder. Kendall, thehomosexual son of aJoint Chiefs of Staff general, claims West possbily ordered a "training accident" on him out of hatred, and died when hit in the back with aphosphorus grenade. When Pike confessed to the crime, Dunbar volunteered to turn him in. Dunbar conversely claims that when West discovered Mueller and his fellow trainee Castro illegally selling prescription drug injection kits called "combat cocktails" intended to dull physical pain and sharpen the mind, Mueller used Pike's grenade to kill West and attempted to frame Pike. After confessing to supplying the drugs and falsifiying tests, physician Peter Vilmer, Osborne's intermittent lover and an old friend of Hardy, is placed under arrest.
Defying Styles' orders, Osborne and Hardy proceed to interrogate Kendall, who begins vomiting blood. Before dying, he draws an '8' with his own blood on Osborne's hand. Hardy explains a rumor about "Section 8", a group of ex-Rangers in Panama who apparently trained under West before turning rogue and becoming drug dealers. Furious, Styles relieves Osborne of duty and dismisses Hardy, deeming the investigation closed as aCID transport from Washington arrives to take Vilmer and Dunbar away.
Vilmer accidentally reveals that "Dunbar" is actually Pike, and Hardy removes Pike from the plane just before takeoff. Forcibly pressured by Hardy, Pike confesses that after West learned about the cocaine-smuggling operation occurring on base, he confronted the Rangers and threatened to turn them in to authorities. He corroborates Kendall's earlier testimony that after a firefight, West and the other trainees were killed, further adding that he took Dunbar'sdog tags and carried Kendall to theextraction point. He gives Hardy, Osborne, and Styles the number of a crate where Vilmer had stowed cocaine. Hardy confronts Styles, determining that he masterminded the drug-dealing operation. West reported the operation to Styles, who then ordered Mueller and Kendall to kill him in the jungle, and poisoned Kendall to silence him. After unsuccessfully attempting to bribe Hardy, Styles attempts to shoot him. However, he is killed by Osborne, who had overheard their conversation.
As the investigation concludes, Osborne's suspicions of Hardy's involvement in the incident are confirmed when she watches Pike sneak into Hardy's car. Following them into Panama City and entering a building with aneight-ball hanging above, she attempts to arrest Hardy once inside, only to be surprisingly greeted by West, Pike and the missing members of the team – Castro, Dunbar, and Nuñez, whom Hardy reveals as his "colleagues". The members reveal that Section 8 is actually a covertblack-ops anti-drug unit, posing as mercenaries to intimidate the cartels. While infiltrating the base undercover to investigate cocaine trafficking, they discovered that Mueller, Kendall and Vilmer were responsible. West, unaware that Styles was also involved, informed him of the drug dealing, after which the training mission became a covert operation to circumvent Mueller and Kendall and fake West's death to extract West from leadership and transfer him to Section 8. Hardy, therefore, was summoned to confirm Styles' and Vilmer's involvement. Impressed by Osborne's work, West and Hardy invite her to join the unit, revealing that Hardy's position as a DEA agent is a cover; he actually remains in the Army as Section 8's Colonel.
In May 2000, it was announcedPhoenix Pictures had acquiredJames Vanderbilt's thriller scriptBasic for $400,000 against $700,000 following a heated bidding war with several other studios.[3] In August of that year, it was announcedLee Tamahori had entered negotiations to direct the film.[4] In October,Benicio del Toro andCatherine Keener were announced to be in final negotiations to play the leads.[5] In July 2001, it was announcedJohn McTiernan would be stepping in as director after Tamahori dropped out during realignment with Intermedia.[6]
After development of the project stumbled, the project was realigned whenIntermedia came on board as a financier with del Toro and Keener having since dropped out.[7] In September of that year, it was announcedJohn Travolta andSamuel L. Jackson would star in the film.[8]
In an interview withEmpire in June 2014 McTiernan said of the production: "It was an absolute fucking nightmare. The week before shooting, I was told I was going to have to shoot the original draft of the screenplay, which didn't work. Furthermore, I was sent a lawyer's letter saying I couldn't tell this to the studio and would be sued if I tried to communicate it to them. I was able to squirrel away half-a-million dollars to do re-shoots, but the story still makes no sense. No sense at all."[9]
Basic earned $11.5 million in its opening weekend, ranking behindHead of State,Bringing Down the House, andThe Core. It grossed $26,793,311 in the US by the end of its theatrical run.[2]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 21% of 140 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 4.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Basic gets so needlessly convoluted in its plot twists that the viewer eventually loses interest."[10]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 34 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.[11] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[12]
Roger Ebert wrote that it was "not a film that could be understood", and that "It is all smoke and no mirrors. If I were to see it again and again, I might be able to extract an underlying logic from it, but the problem is, when a movie's not worth seeing twice, it had better get the job done the first time through."[13] Christopher Smith of theBangor Daily News gave the film a D, saying, "The film tries too hard to be something it isn't - a smart, crafty little cross betweenThe Usual Suspects,Rashomon andThe General's Daughter as directed byJohn Woo after taking one heady snort of glue."[14] Rob Blackwelder ofSPLICEDwire explained that the film was "so full of cheap red herrings that watching it feels like gorging on aLong John Silver's all-you-can-eat buffet."[15]
Elvis Mitchell ofThe New York Times gave the film a scoring of one out of four, saying, "Someone decided to putRashomon in aCuisinart along withA Few Good Men,The Usual Suspects andA Soldier's Story, and hit the pulverize button while forgetting to replace the top."[16] Marjorie Baumgarten ofThe Austin Chronicle commended Travolta and Jackson for delivering "a couple of fun, over-the-top moments" and Ribisi for scenery chewing "like nobody's business", but felt the film comes across as a "preposterous" mess, saying, "It begins in a muddle and ends in confusion. In between,Basic takes more silly twists than any that might be on display at aChubby Checker look-alike contest."[17]
Chuck Randolph ofSlant Magazine was mixed on the overall cast's performances, commended McTiernan's "efficient technical direction", and criticized the multiple twist endings for putting the film's "straightforward" action thriller story into "kindergarten territory", saying that "Basic is actually boiled down to the most uncomplicated of summations: it makes absolutely no sense."[18]
Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide gave it two stars out of four and wrote that the film "keeps adding layers of confusion so that it becomes less interesting as it goes along! The final "twist" seems to negate the entire story, like a badshaggy-dog joke."[19]
