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Basic
(Reviewed March 12, 2003)
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The ending of "Basic" is so "hoo-boy" ridiculous that you will want to shout "oh, BROTHER" and throw your empty popcorn box at the screen. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever in the context
of What Has Gone Before. Was this a nefarious scheme by the producers, who are hoping to get people to see the movie twice in order to confirm their suspicions that "Basic" has more inherent
contradictions than George W. Bush's foreign policy? One has to wonder.
Stars John
Travolta and Connie Nielsen engage in flirty high-school banter that does not jibe well at all with the drugs-'n'-murder military investigation in which they are involved. Harry Connick Jr. is remarkably
bad as a military doctor who coughs up a Shocking Revelation with astoundingly little convincing. Samuel L. Jackson comes off the best, as a hard-as-nails military man who is such a completely
convincing bastard that he makes you actually enjoy seeing that old stereotype again.
"Basic" is one of those movies that piles frustration upon frustration because if Just Won't End. Movies like this always remind me of the Dashiell Hammett novel "The Glass Key." Every
time you think everything has been satisfyingly wrapped up in that book, someone suggests another possibility, and another, and another, to the point where you just plain don't give a damn.
Basically, everybody in "Basic" says and does things that don't end up making a lick of sense. And did I mention that I hated the ending?
Back Row Grade: F
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