Basic | |
---|---|
Directed by | John McTiernan |
Written by | James Vanderbilt |
Produced by |
|
Starring | |
Cinematography | Steve Mason |
Edited by | George Folsey Jr. |
Music by | Klaus Badelt |
Production companies | |
Distributed by |
|
Release date |
|
Running time | 98 minutes |
Countries |
|
Language | English |
Budget | $50 million [1] |
Box office | $42.8 million [2] |
Basic is a 2003 mystery- action thriller film directed by John McTiernan, written by James Vanderbilt, and starring John Travolta, Connie Nielsen and Samuel L. Jackson. It is the second film starring Travolta and Jackson after working on Pulp Fiction . The story follows a DEA agent solving the mystery of a bungled training exercise that leads to the deaths of multiple Army Ranger trainees and their instructor. Basic received negative reviews from critics regarding its overall plot and numerous twist endings. It was a box-office bomb, grossing only $42.8 million worldwide against a $50 million budget. As of 2024, it is McTiernan's most recent film given his subsequent criminal charges and eventual incarceration related to wiretapping.
During a live fire exercise in the jungles of Panama, a team of Army Rangers trainees is led by instructor and Master Sergeant Nathan West. Sergeant Ray Dunbar emerges from the jungle carrying wounded Second Lieutenant Levi Kendall. The two men are pursued by Sergeant Mueller, whom Dunbar kills in self-defense. Although no other bodies are found, West's team is presumed dead.
Dunbar refuses to talk to Military Police investigator Captain Julia Osborne and insists on speaking to a fellow Ranger from outside the base, drawing an '8' on a piece of paper. The post commander, Colonel Bill Styles, calls in his friend: experienced interrogator, ex-Ranger and now DEA agent Tom Hardy, and assigns him to aid Osborne.
Interrogating the survivors, they learn that West was infamous for being an abusive sergeant. One of the trainees, Jay Pike, earned West's wrath for not following orders, and may have staged the murder. Kendall, the son of a Joint Chiefs of Staff general and a homosexual, claims West hated him and may have ordered a "training accident" on him. He claims West died when hit in the back with a phosphorus grenade. When Pike confessed to the crime, Dunbar wanted to turn him in; a firefight ensued and most of the trainees were killed.
Dunbar claims Kendall is lying and that Mueller and his fellow trainee Castro were illegally selling prescription drugs and West became aware of their operation. Mueller used Pike's grenade to kill West and tried to frame Pike. A firefight ensues and several trainees were killed. Dr. Peter Vilmer supplied the drugs and falsified tests so that soldiers came out clean. After confessing, Vilmer is placed under arrest.
Styles orders Osborne and Hardy not to talk to Kendall again. They disobey and interrogate Kendall once more, but he begins vomiting blood. Before dying, he draws an '8' with his own blood on Osborne's hand. Hardy explains a rumor about a group of ex-Rangers in Panama calling themselves "Section 8". They apparently trained under West, turned rogue and became drug dealers.
Styles is furious; he relieves Osborne of duty and tells Hardy to leave. He considers the investigation closed and a CID 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. Pike explains that West learned about the actual operation going on at the base: cocaine smuggling. He confronted the Rangers and threatened to turn them in to authorities. After a firefight, West and the other trainees were killed. Pike took Dunbar's dog tags and carried Kendall to the extraction point. He gives Hardy, Osborne, and Styles the number of a crate where Vilmer had stowed cocaine.
Hardy confronts Styles, determining he was behind the drug-dealing operation. When West reported the operation to Styles, Styles ordered Mueller and Kendall to kill him in the jungle, then poisoned Kendall to silence him. Styles tries to bribe Hardy before attempting to shoot him; Styles is killed by Osborne, who was eavesdropping on their talk.
As the investigation concludes, Osborne suspects that Hardy is somehow involved in the incident; this is confirmed when she watches Pike sneak into Hardy's car. She follows them into Panama City, where they enter a building with an eight-ball hanging above. Inside, she is greeted by West and the missing members of the team – Castro, Dunbar, and Nuñez, who Hardy reveals as his 'colleagues'.
Section 8 is actually a covert black-ops anti-drug unit; the "going rogue" story is a cover to spook the cartels. The agents infiltrated the base undercover to investigate cocaine trafficking and discovered Mueller, Kendall and Vilmer were responsible. West, not realizing Styles was also involved, informed him of the drug dealing. The training mission became a covert Section 8 operation to circumvent Mueller and Kendall and fake West's death to extract West from leadership and transfer him to Section 8. Hardy was called in to confirm Styles' and Vilmer's involvement.
Impressed by her work, Hardy offers Osborne a job in the unit, along with the revelation that his position as a DEA agent are a cover; he actually remains in the Army as Section 8's Colonel.
In May 2000, it was announced Phoenix Pictures had acquired James Vanderbilt's thriller script Basic for $400,000 against $700,000 following a heated bidding war with several other studios. [3] In August of that year, it was announced Lee Tamahori had entered negotiations to direct the film. [4] In October, Benicio del Toro and Catherine Keener were announced to be in final negotiations to play the leads. [5] In July 2001, it was announced John 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 when Intermedia came on board as a financier with del Toro and Keener having since dropped out. [7] In September of that year, it was announced John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson would star in the film. [8]
In an interview with Empire 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 behind Head of State , Bringing Down the House , and The Core . It grossed $26,793,311 in the US by the end of its theatrical run. [2]
Basic garnered negative reviews from critics. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 21% approval rating based on 143 reviews, with an average score of 4.5/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Basic gets so needlessly convoluted in its plot twists that the viewer eventually loses interest." [10] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 34 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". [11] Audiences polled by CinemaScore 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]
Marjorie Baumgarten of The 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 a Chubby Checker look-alike contest." [14]
Chuck Randolph of Slant 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." [15]
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 bad shaggy-dog joke." [16]
Traffic is a 2000 American crime drama film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Stephen Gaghan. It explores the illegal drug trade from several perspectives: users, enforcers, politicians, and traffickers. Their stories are edited together throughout the film, although some characters do not meet each other. The film is an adaptation of the 1989 British Channel 4 television series Traffik. The film stars an international ensemble cast, including Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Michael Douglas, Erika Christensen, Luis Guzmán, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jacob Vargas, Tomas Milian, Topher Grace, James Brolin, Steven Bauer, and Benjamin Bratt. It features both English and Spanish-language dialogue.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating illicit drug trafficking and distribution within the U.S. It is the lead agency for domestic enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act, sharing concurrent jurisdiction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. However, the DEA has sole responsibility for coordinating and pursuing U.S. drug investigations both domestically and internationally.
Methaqualone is a hypnotic sedative. It was sold under the brand names Quaalude and Sopor among others, which contained 300 mg of methaqualone, and sold as a combination drug under the brand name Mandrax, which contained 250 mg methaqualone and 25 mg diphenhydramine within the same tablet, mostly in Europe. Commercial production of methaqualone was halted in the mid-1980s due to widespread abuse and addictiveness. It is a member of the quinazolinone class.
The Usual Suspects is a 1995 crime thriller film directed by Bryan Singer and written by Christopher McQuarrie. It stars Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Chazz Palminteri, Pete Postlethwaite, and Kevin Spacey.
John Campbell McTiernan Jr. is an American retired filmmaker. He is best known for his action films, including Predator (1987), Die Hard (1988), and The Hunt for Red October (1990). His later well-known films include the action-comedy-fantasy film Last Action Hero (1993), the action film sequel Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), the heist-film remake The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), and The 13th Warrior (1999). His last completed feature film was the mystery-thriller Basic, released in 2003.
Deep Cover is a 1992 American crime thriller film directed by Bill Duke from a screenplay by Henry Bean and Michael Tolkin. The film stars Laurence Fishburne, Jeff Goldblum, and Charles Martin Smith. Its plot focuses on a Cincinnati-based police officer who goes undercover in a Los Angeles sting operation to bring down a West Coast drug cartel.
Section 8 was a category of military discharge employed by the United States Armed Forces which was used for servicemembers judged mentally unfit for service. This type of discharge was also often given to cross-dressers, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender personnel in the U.S. military.
Alfentanil (R-39209), sold under the brand name Alfenta among others, is a potent but short-acting synthetic opioid analgesic drug used for anesthesia in surgery. It is an analogue of fentanyl with around one-fourth to one-tenth the potency, one-third the duration of action, and an onset of action four times faster than that of fentanyl. Alfentanil has a pKa of approximately 6.5, which leads to a very high proportion of the drug being uncharged at physiologic pH, a characteristic responsible for its rapid-onset. It is an agonist of the μ-opioid receptor.
Commandos is the special forces formation of the Singapore Army responsible for conducting special operations. Commandos are tasked with infiltrating behind enemy lines by raiding and reconnaissance operations using airborne raids, helicopter assault and sea landings. The formation is made up of only one battalion, the 1st Commando Battalion, and is based in Hendon Camp.
Fort Jackson is a United States Army installation, which TRADOC operates on for Basic Combat Training (BCT), and is located within the city of Columbia, South Carolina. This installation is named for Andrew Jackson, a United States Army general and the seventh president of the United States (1829–1837) who was born in the border region of North and South Carolina.
Edward Thomas Hardy is an English actor. After studying acting at the Drama Centre London, Hardy made his film debut in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down in 2001. He had supporting roles in the films Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) and RocknRolla (2008), and then went on to star in Bronson (2008), Warrior (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Lawless (2012), This Means War (2012), and Locke (2013). In 2015, he starred as "Mad" Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road and both Kray twins in Legend, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Revenant. Hardy appeared in three Christopher Nolan films: Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and Dunkirk (2017). He has since starred as the title character in the film Venom (2018) and its sequels Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) and Venom: The Last Dance (2024).
Basic Instinct 2 is a 2006 erotic thriller film and the sequel to 1992's Basic Instinct. The film was directed by Michael Caton-Jones and produced by Mario Kassar, Joel B. Michaels, and Andrew G. Vajna. The screenplay was by Leora Barish and Henry Bean. It stars Sharon Stone, who reprises her role of crime mystery author Catherine Tramell, and David Morrissey. The film is an international co-production of German, British, American, and Spanish production companies.
"The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Walker" is a missing episode in the British comedy series Dad's Army. It was originally transmitted on 15 March 1969. One of the three missing Dad's Army episodes, only a few short clips and screenshots survive in the archives.
Get Shorty is a 1995 American gangster comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and written by Scott Frank, based on Elmore Leonard's novel of the same name. The film stars John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Delroy Lindo, James Gandolfini, Dennis Farina, and Danny DeVito. It follows Chili Palmer (Travolta), a Miami mobster and loan shark who inadvertently gets involved in Hollywood feature film production.
United States Army Basic Combat Training (BCT) is the recruit training program of the United States Army, for service in the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Reserve, or the Army National Guard.
Savages is a 2012 American action thriller film directed by Oliver Stone. It is based on Don Winslow's novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Stone, Winslow, and Shane Salerno. It stars Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Benicio del Toro, Demián Bichir, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch and John Travolta. The film follows two marijuana growers, Chon, an ex-Navy SEAL, and Ben, who are best friends, as they confront the Mexican drug cartel that kidnapped their shared girlfriend.
Enrique "Kiki" Camarena Salazar was a Mexican-American intelligence officer for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In February 1985, Camarena was kidnapped by corrupt police officers hired by the Guadalajara Cartel. He was interrogated under torture and murdered. Three leaders of the cartel were eventually convicted in Mexico for Camarena's murder. The U.S. investigation into Camarena's murder led to ten more trials in Los Angeles for other Mexican nationals involved in the crime. The case continues to trouble U.S.–Mexican relations, most recently when Rafael Caro Quintero, one of the three convicted traffickers, was released from a Mexican prison in 2013. Caro Quintero again was captured by Mexican forces in July 2022.
Sheridan Taylor Gibler Jr., known professionally as Taylor Sheridan, is an American writer, producer, director and actor. He is best known as the co-creator of the television series Yellowstone and creator of its prequels 1883 (2021) and 1923 (2022).
The Fanatic is a 2019 American psychological thriller film directed and co-written by Fred Durst. It stars John Travolta as Moose, an autistic man who develops an unhealthy obsession with his favorite actor Hunter Dunbar and stalks him. The film was given a limited theatrical and a VOD release, on August 30, 2019 by Quiver Distribution and Redbox Entertainment, and received mainly negative reviews, with some praise towards Travolta's performance.
The following is a list of unproduced John McTiernan projects in roughly chronological order. During his long career, American film director John McTiernan has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Some of these projects fell in development hell, were officially canceled, were in development limbo or would see life under a different production team.