.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

If you told me months ago that John Travolta would be teaming up again with his Pulp Fiction co-star Samuel L. Jackson in a movie by John McTierman, I would lay money that it couldn't lose. After all, actors from Face Off and Unbreakable under the directing eye of Mr. Die Hard. I thought they might have to hand out sedatives in line to help with all the excitement.

Then the movie began. And was I ever wrong.

Basic has the very un-basic story of DEA agent Tom Hardy who is called upon in a military investigation to help interrogate a surviving soldier of a training mission that left a Sergeant and three soldiers dead. Of course, he is met with resistance, and following Hollywood logic, why wouldn't it be a woman? Lt. Julia Osbourne (played very poorly by Connie Neilson) is the career military woman who takes offence when Hardy is asked to take over the case. But guess what? Yip, within 90 minutes, the banter between these two members of the opposite sex, will lead to adoration and respect. Didn't see that bus.

The movie is told in flashbacks by surviving members and each flashback confused me more than the last. Then, just when I think I might be onto something, Givoanni Ribisi's character gives his view of the events and just completely snafu's any interest I had been building.

Make no mistake about it, Basic is one of the bigger disappointments of 2003. With all that star power and a director the can do wonders with good material, this should have been a no-brainer. Maybe some blame has to fall on the script, written by first timer James Vanderbilt. Maybe some blame has to go to the actors, who look to lose incredible interest just moments into their introductory scene. Or, maybe this is all over analyzing. Some movies are just bad, and Basic is one of those films.

I do have to sit back and wonder what drew everyone to this film. The script must have read like thousands of others on the nightstands of Jackson and Travolta. The non-accepted gay military man, the black recruit who is picked on, the drug running operation that involved many characters.what was in this film that hasn't been seen before or done to death? The characters are uninteresting, and frankly, each is so annoying that I didn't care they started to drop like flies. In fact, better to have these annoying characters take themselves out rather than entrust them to represent the US of A during wartime.

Granted, there is an ending that I won't give away that did take me for a bit of a surprise. But that is probably more due to the fact that I lost interest rather than any clever bet-you-didn't-see-that-coming storyboarding.

This continues the long chain of flops now for Travolta and McTierman. Travolta has been in such trivial fair as Domestic Disturbance, Swordfish and Battlefield Earth while McT has completely destroyed his reputation with The Last Action Hero and Rollerball.

The DVD comes with a commentary from McTierman, but who cares. There was no way I could sit through this movie again with another vantage point, so that audio supplement will gain dust on my shelf.

guess if I had to say something good about the movie, I would have to give chops to the individual responsible for the rain effects. In every scene it is either raining extremely hard (so hard I couldn't understand what some of the characters were yelling) or the actors are in running indoors soaked to the bone. Which was a good thing. Cause watching water run down Travolta's chin was more interesting that any plot points we're asked to accept.