TheLittleSongbird 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

FlashCallahan An Army sergeant takes six of his troops on a training mission into the Colombian jungle and only survive. When the rescue mission arrives, they see one soldier killing another and carrying a wounded comrade. As the interrogation begins, the soldier refuses to talk to anyone other than another Ranger. The investigating officer protests, but her commanding officer brings in a former Ranger and current DEA agent to help. The agent is currently on suspension from DEA for allegedly accepting a bribe.....Basic is all over the shop with style over substance. The film has so many cuts and edits, and even more flashbacks, you forget about the actual story halfway through the second act, and just enjoy Travolta in one of his last, quite good roles.He really thinks that this is groundbreaking stuff, and it is almost a pseudo-sequel to The General's Daughter.So the film consists of him and Nielsen going back and forth talking to the survivors, whom each give a different story.The flashbacks consist of Jackson at this shouty best, in the pouring rain, threatening Giovanni Ribisi.Sexuality of some of the troops is hinted for the betrayal, but his is soon forgotten about in favour of Travolta trying to look buff in his tight black T-shirt, when in fact, he looks like he could do with a good dose of laxatives.It's short, and fun to watch, thanks to the performances and the direction, but the story really goes nowhere, and the ending is just laughable.

Com Func I'm normally a fan of John Travolta, but as other reviewers have said, there are just too many plot twists and turns, mixed in with a variety of flashbacks, so that in the end you stop caring. Or rather, you are thinking when told yet another version of events "really, well maybe, but I'll just treat that as hypothetical for now". Note to director, if you are going to perpetually change a plot, you have to first get us invested in the first one. If you just sketch out one plot line, then quickly skip to another, we just don't care. This reminds me of Kurosawa's Rashomon, where 4 different accounts are presented of a rape and murder. Rashomon however, does not leave one feeling frustrated in the way this movie does. But back to the movie. I was struggling with the realism of this OLD movie having a female Ranger since they weren't allowed to serve till April 2016. If she had been a butch muscular woman maybe I could swallow it, but she was petite and very cute. Then one of the guys was blatantly gay - and this is before "Don't ask, don't tell" was scrapped. So now I was waiting for the black disabled lesbian Ranger to appear in the next scene, just so we can all be politically correct.The straw on the camel's back came in the middle of yet another discussion in the rain soaked hut. There were at least 70 lighting flashes over a 3 minute scene. I was wondering if the "training exercise" was taking place on the planet Venus, or did the lighting engineer have a dodgy power supply? The map shows lightning flashes per sq km per year, with black / max at 70:http://geology.com/articles/lightning-map.shtml Since that jungle hut experienced a few year's worth of lightning in the course of that one scene, I guess the rest of the year was just peaceful and sunny? For me, the movie descended from 'hostile training environment' to pantomime, and I switched it off.

indiedavid I have to admit that I didn't watch the whole film because I just couldn't stop laughing at the horrible portrayal of military protocol and operations. If I intentionally tried to make a film with more errors, I would struggle to do so. Rank, uniforms, formations, etc. were all bungled. I am not sure if the Producers used a military consultant but if they did, they were either from the Civil War or a foreign military because these guys knew nothing about US Army Ranger training, Military Police investigations, equipment, uniforms, rank, Panama, etc. I was confused at many points. I couldn't tell if Samuel Jackson was supposed to be a Ranger Instructor at Ft. Benning or a Platoon Sergeant in Panama. In either case, both were incorrect in nearly every aspect. At one point, he was leading a platoon but was wearing Specialist rank then he was with same group in a jungle but he was wearing SFC rank. I could go on and on about the uniform issues but I will only point out one that provided the most entertainment for me. After conducting hundreds of hours of jungle patrols, I have never seen somebody so stupid that they wore a beret instead of a patrol cap.