Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7226 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-01-19
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Basic is a military mystery that offers multi-layered deception as its dramatic raison d'etre, but with plenty of machismo attitude as befitting a semi-effective thriller from Die Hard director John McTiernan. John Travolta stars as an ex-Army Ranger-turned-DEA agent, recruited by an Army investigator (Connie Nielsen) to solve the fratricide of a reviled Sergeant (Samuel L Jackson) who was allegedly killed while commanding a Special Forces training mission in the hurricane-swept rainforests of Panama. Two survivors (Giovanni Ribisi in a showboat role and Brian Van Holt) recall the ill-fated mission as the truth unfolds, Rashomon-style, in a series of repetitive flashbacks. Tricky enough to hold one's attention as it grows increasingly irrelevant, Basic is so enamoured of its bogus ingenuity that its ultimate twist is a letdown. A second viewing might prove rewarding, if only to confirm that it all holds together. --Jeff Shannon

DVD Description
John Travolta is Tom Hardy, ex-Army Ranger-turned Drug Enforcement Agency agent, a hard man with a dark past. Hardy is drawn into a mystery as wild as the hurricane-ravaged jungles of Panama when he is ordered to investigate the disappearance of a legendary Special Forces instructor, Sgt. Nathan West (Samuel L. Jackson) and several of his elite team. What happened out there? Hardy intends to find out - at any price.

Deception proves to be a dangerous weapon as Hardy unravels the truth with shocking consequences. From the director of Die Hard, Basic delivers all-action thrills with an all-star cast, including Connie Nielson (Gladiator), Giovanni Ribisi (Gone In Sixty Seconds) and Brian Van Holt (Windtalkers).

Special Features

• Basic Ingredients - writer's featurette
  
• Director's Design featurette
  
• Trailers and TV / radio spots

DVD Technical Information:

• Language: English
  
• Subtitles: English, English HOH
  
• Running Time: 97 mins approx.

Customer Reviews

Such a waste of good talent?
I watched this film twice in the hope of understanding really what the purpose was of actually making it? There are so many holes that can be picked in it from start to finish that I really can't "get it"? Skipping over everything and going directly to where Travolta is called into help Nielsen interrogate the prisoner I assumed it was by the ending to do with the drugs.But I also had to wonder how some guns miraculously had dummy ammo but others not? The ending was just too smart for itself, I can't pretend to say I know what it was/when it was? It was plain daft.Not a single reviewer can say he/she knows what the ending reflects. Amazon may have a policy of NOT criticising other reviewers but if that is the case they in turn SHOULD NOT accept 3 line reviews which say absolutely nothing constructive about the film other than "great film" or similar or 30 line reviews that are full of pompous flowery comparisoms with other films and little about the one in question!

What..
This movie is great !!!!! such an awsome story, and very scray..... lol
Not much "action" but its brilliant

Poor, poor, poor, poor.
An unbelievably poor film. The storyline is far too complicated to follow without a notebook and pen to keep up with what's supposed to be happening and by the time I actually found out what happened at the end, I just didn't care.

There's hundreds of better war films and hundreds of better court room drama/police investigation films out there. This is an attempt to weld the two together, and it's a failure.