The movie deals upon a commando of brave soldiers . During the training , the sergeant (Samuel L. Jackson) is killed . A previously soldier and now DEA agent (John Travolta) has to solve who is the killer . He investigates the disappearance of a legendary Army ranger drill sergeant and several of his cadets during a training exercise gone severely awry . He's helped by an officer (Connie Nielsen) . They will have to face off difficult enigmas until to find out the truth .

The picture blends action , suspense , whodunit , thriller , emotions and is pretty entertaining . The flick is tense and mysterious from the beginning till ending and is neither boring , nor dull but entertaining . The screenplay of the film has a twisted plot and the final gets an extraordinary surprise . Runtime film is overlong but is fast-moving and for that reason is amusing . The movie is similar to classic ¨Rashomon¨ (by Akira Kurosawa) and ¨The Outrage¨ (by Martin Ritt) , regarding deeds since various points of sight as people explain them . Every time the story of the bunker is retold , each person has a different partner . Interpretation by John Travolta is top-notch likeness to Connie Nielsen . Samuel L. Jackson's acting is limited , he has a secondary but excellent role . Direction by John McTiernan is outstanding and stunning . The picture will appeal to mystery enthusiasts and suspense lovers . Rating : 7/10 above average. Well worth watching.

BASIC is a very dumb military thriller and the last film (to date) to be directed by John McTiernan, the former great who brought us DIE HARD and PREDATOR. This film's a far cry from those movies and even from John Travolta's previous military film, THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER. It's an attempt at a RASHOMON-style narrative in which the disappearance of a group of soldiers is told in flashback in different ways by multiple witnesses, but the script is badly-written and gets bogged down in one silly twist after another, eventually causing the viewer to lose interest in the exercise. The actors are on autopilot here, including Samuel L. Jackson, and the end result is tedium rather than excitement.

John McTiernan showed that he had a lot of talent for directing in his early career. 'Die Hard' to this day is one of the landmarks of the action genre as well as being a wonderful film in general, and 'Predator' and 'The Hunt for Red October' are also great. 'Die Hard with a Vengeance' is very enjoyable. Sadly, the 2000s in particular saw his career do a 180, with 2002's dreadful 'Rollerball' making one shocked that it actually came from him.

'Basic', from 2003, turned out to be McTiernan's most recent film before his personal life and legal troubles got in the way. It is certainly much better than 'Rollerball', then again almost anything is and it is difficult not to make anything better. However, there is still that disappointing sense that such a promising career start declined as drastically as McTiernan's. Is 'Basic' a terrible film and as bad as critics have said? Not quite. Could it have been much better? Yes. It suffers from the opposite problem of 'Rollerball', that film had the feeling of not that much effort was put into it whereas 'Basic' suffers from trying too hard.

There are good things. 'Basic' actually starts off well, there was a little tension and has enough to make one intrigued in wanting to continue. It is a slick looking film, despite scenes being darkly lit even for a film where there are a lot of night-time scenes, giving a genuinely moody and gritty thriller look.

Klaus Badelt provides an atmospheric music score. John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Connie Nielsen and Tim Daly make the most of what they have and actually do quite well, Travolta in particular seems to be having a good time while not overdoing it.

However, McTiernan seems out of sorts and lost here, and he shouldn't have been because 'Basic' is not a change of pace film like 'Medicine Man' was. He should have been the perfect person to direct considering the genre, but clearly bit off far more than he could actually chew, he struggles to make the film compelling and loses control. The script is sluggish and over-stuffed, with many awkward moments, suffering too from trying to do far too much.

Despite starting off well, 'Basic' derails quickly and gets increasingly tedious and convoluted to the point of incoherence. The final act in particular almost single-handedly wrecks the film, it tries to take on far too many twists and pretty much every single one of them attempted is confusing and ridiculous and then it ends on such an incomplete-feeling note. Taking away the twists, the story actually is pretty basic and thin, giving the sense that the piling on of the twists was trying to disguise that the story was very bare bones underneath. There is no reason given to allow anybody to care for the shallow characters or the severely flawed story, while Harry Connick Jr feels out of place and Giovanni Ribisi is in parody mode that one can't take him seriously.

Overall, not a waste of time but could have been much better because the potential was there. 4/10 Bethany Cox