Basic (2003)

A DEA agent investigates the disappearance of a legendary Army ranger drill sergeant and several of his cadets during a training exercise gone severely awry.

Director:

John McTiernan

Writer:

James Vanderbilt

Stars:

John Travolta, Connie Nielsen, Samuel L. Jackson

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
John Travolta	...	Hardy
Connie Nielsen	...	Osborne
Samuel L. Jackson	...	West
Tim Daly	...	Styles
Giovanni Ribisi	...	Kendall
Brian Van Holt	...	Dunbar
Taye Diggs	...	Pike
Dash Mihok	...	Mueller
Cristián de la Fuente	...	Castro
Roselyn Sanchez	...	Nunez
Harry Connick Jr.	...	Vilmer
Georgia Hausserman	...	Pilot
Margaret Travolta	...	Nurse #1
Dena Johnston	...	Nurse #2
Nick Loren	...	Helicopter Pilot

Storyline

Tom Hardy, an ex-Army Ranger turned DEA agent, is drawn into an ever-widening mystery surrounding the disappearance of the feared and often hated Sgt. Nathan West, as well as several of his elite Special Forces trainees on what appears, at first, to have been a routine training exercise during a hurricane in the jungles of Panama. Only two survivors are found, Dunbar, and a badly wounded Kendall, the son of a high-profile Joint Chiefs of Staff official. Neither is willing to cooperate with Capt. Julia Osborne's investigation. So base commander Col. Bill Styles calls in ex-Ranger Hardy, an old friend and a persuasive interrogator. Osborne disapproves of Hardy who is on leave from the D.E.A. after having come under suspicion of accepting bribes from local drug traffickers. She is also uneasy when she learns that Hardy once trained under West and hates him almost as passionately as his current recruits. With time running out, Hardy and Osborne call a temporary, if uneasy, truce. Hardy ...

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Plot Keywords:

army | panama | contradictory accounts | multiple perspectives | racial slur | 

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Taglines:

There are degrees of truth.

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Genres:

Action | Mystery | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence and language

Details

Official Sites:

Sony Pictures

Country:

USA Germany

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 March 2003 (USA)

Also Known As:

Básico y letal

Filming Locations:

Costa Rica

Box Office

Budget:

$50,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$727,348 (Italy) (31 October 2003)

Gross:

$1,196,015 (Italy) (7 November 2003)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Phoenix Pictures, Intermedia Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

98 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

In order to give Roselyn Sanchez the proper posture, John McTiernan had her wear a 50-pound bag of sand on the front of her belt while at the same time told her to imagine herself as a Las Vegas showgirl.

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Goofs

When the doctor is in the jail cell waiting for transport, his lips do not match the words he's singing ("nobody ever had to scratch my back").

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Quotes

[first lines]
Osbourne: [narration] The French tried to build a canal here before the Americans. At the height of their effort, 500 workers were dyin' a week from malaria and yellow fever. They couldn't come up with cemetary space fast enough. Not to mention the morale problem all those crosses would have made. So they bought shiploads of vinegar in Cuba, and in each barrel, they sealed one corpse, and then they sold them as medical cadavers all over Europe. And for a while, that was their principal source...

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Connections

References Rashomon (1950)

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Soundtracks

"Comparsa de Los Muertos"
Written & Performed by Bruno Coon
Performed by The Africowboys

User Reviews

it could have been real good but...

now a days, you see a movie and in the middle of it, you already know the ending, so it's really refreshing to see that 'basic' defies that! i was really having a blast, was loving it, and when the end came i was blown away, but for only one second, because then the brain kicked in, and realize that the plot was wrong, didn't made sense! there were so many twists (and i love that in a movie) that even the editors got confused, if that ending was meant to be, than there were things that happened earlier on, that don't make sense, that are just wrong.

despite all that i liked the movie, i enjoyed't when i was watching and even more when i came out of the theater room and debated with my friends, trying to make sense on why some scenes happened, i bought the DVD only to get to the sad conclusion that i was right and there's something wrong with the story. if only the story would have matched, it would be, one of my favorite action movies!