MOVIEmeter
Top 5000
Up 958 this week

Basic (2003)

6.4
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 6.4/10 from 38,054 users   Metascore: 34/100
Reviews: 275 user | 124 critic | 33 from Metacritic.com

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:

Watch Trailer
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 48 titles created 30 May 2011
 
a list of 10000 titles created 3 months ago
 
a list of 189 titles created 6 months ago
 
a list of 1623 titles created 5 months ago
 
a list of 250 titles created 08 Feb 2011
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: Basic (2003)

Basic (2003) on IMDb 6.4/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of Basic.
1 nomination. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Fracture (2007)
Crime | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.1/10 X  

An attorney intent on climbing the career ladder toward success, finds an unlikely opponent in a manipulative criminal he's trying to prosecute.

Director: Gregory Hoblit
Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, David Strathairn
State of Play (2009)
Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.1/10 X  

A team of investigative reporters work alongside a police detective to try to solve the murder of a congressman's mistress.

Director: Kevin Macdonald
Stars: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams
Crime | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.4/10 X  

Police hunting for a serial killer are helped when a victim manages to escape for the first time.

Director: Gary Fleder
Stars: Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, Cary Elwes
High Crimes (2002)
Crime | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.2/10 X  

High powered lawyer Claire Kubik finds her world turned upside down when her husband, who she thought was Tom Kubik, is arrested and is revealed to be Ron Chapman. Chapman is on trial for a... See full summary »

Director: Carl Franklin
Stars: Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman, Jim Caviezel
Primal Fear (1996)
Crime | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

An altar boy is accused of murdering a priest, and the truth is buried several layers deep.

Director: Gregory Hoblit
Stars: Richard Gere, Laura Linney, John Mahoney
Se7en (1995)
Crime | Mystery | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.7/10 X  

Two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, hunt a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his modus operandi.

Director: David Fincher
Stars: Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow
Mr. Brooks (2007)
Crime | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

A psychological thriller about a man who is sometimes controlled by his murder-and-mayhem-loving alter ego.

Director: Bruce A. Evans
Stars: Kevin Costner, Demi Moore, Dane Cook
Insomnia (2002)
Crime | Mystery | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.2/10 X  

Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.

Director: Christopher Nolan
Stars: Al Pacino, Martin Donovan, Hilary Swank
Crime | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.6/10 X  

Neo military lawyer Kaffee defends Marines accused of murder; they contend they were acting under orders.

Director: Rob Reiner
Stars: Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore
Mystic River (2003)
Crime | Drama | Mystery
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

With a childhood tragedy that overshadowed their lives, three men are reunited by circumstance when one loses a daughter.

Director: Clint Eastwood
Stars: Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon
Crime | Mystery | Thriller
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.2/10 X  

A woman framed for her husband's murder suspects he is still alive; as she has already been tried for the crime, she can't be re-prosecuted if she finds and kills him.

Director: Bruce Beresford
Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Ashley Judd, Benjamin Weir
Fight Club (1999)
Drama
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.9/10 X  

An insomniac office worker looking for a way to change his life crosses paths with a devil-may-care soap maker and they form an underground fight club that evolves into something much, much more...

Director: David Fincher
Stars: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
Pike
...
Mueller
...
Castro
...
Nunez
...
Vilmer
Georgia Hausserman ...
Pilot
Margaret Travolta ...
Nurse #1
Dena Johnston ...
Nurse #2
...
Helicopter Pilot
Edit

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 ... Written by Sujit R. Varma

Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis

Taglines:

Back to Basic [Denmark] See more »


Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence and language | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Official Sites:

Country:

|

Language:

Release Date:

28 March 2003 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

Básico y letal  »

Filming Locations:

 »

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

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

| |

Color:

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

Every time the story of the bunker is retold, each person has a different partner. See more »

Goofs

At the beginning of the movie they are flying in an American Eurocopter EC120. When they show a close-up they are in an American Eurocopter AS350 "A-Star". See more »

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...
See more »

Connections

Featured in Basic Ingredients: A Writer's Perspective (2003) See more »

Soundtracks

"Natural Blues"
Written by Moby (as Richard (Moby) Hall), Vera Hall & Alan Lomax
Performed by Moby
Courtesy of V2 Records, Inc./Mute Records Ltd.
Contains a sample from "Trouble So Hard"
Written by Vera Hall & Alan Lomax
Performed by Vera Hall
Courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corp.
By Arrangement with Warner Special Products
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

See more (Spoiler Alert!) »

User Reviews

 
Not the best movie in the genre, but it could have been a lot worse
19 July 2005 | by (Tessenderlo, Belgium) – See all my reviews

Even though I had some doubts about this movie before watching it, I definitely wanted to give it a try. There were several reasons for that. One of those reasons is because Samuel L. Jackson plays an important role in it. That man on his own is already reason enough to watch a movie, but I also knew that it was directed by John McTiernan, who also made "The Hunt for Red October", "The 13th Warrior" and "Die Hard: With a Vengeance". Three movies that I've seen and liked very much. The only one that didn't really do it for me was "The Thomas Crown Affair", but with an average of three out of four, I could only hope for the best with this movie.

"Basic" starts with showing us how army sergeant West takes six of his special troops on a training mission into the Colombian rain forest, from which only two return alive. When the rescue mission arrives, they see one soldier killing another and carrying a wounded comrade. As soon as they are back on the base, the interrogation of Dunbar - one of the two survivors - starts. But he refuses to talk to anyone else than another Ranger who he doesn't know yet. That's where former Ranger and current DEA agent Hardy comes in. He is able to get a confession out of Dunbar, but as he digs deeper, he only finds more and more prove of contradictions and illegal practices...

This is one of those movies that you have to watch when you can keep your mind to it from the beginning until the end. If you think that you'll need to take a break in between, you better don't even start watching it because the entire story is so confusing and so many plot twists make it almost impossible to watch it, unless you can keep focused. But don't think that this means that this movie isn't any good. It's especially thanks to the many twists that I kept watching, because the interrogation scenes and the 'action scenes' on the base didn't always do it for me. What I also liked about this movie was Samuel L. Jackson's performance. He was really nice as the tough sergeant West. You could see that the man enjoyed playing this role. John Travolta wasn't bad either, but I've already seen him play better roles.

Overall this isn't a bad movie. Thanks to the mysterious story and the many twists it is hard to keep track, but when you are able to do so, you'll have fun watching it. Still, not everything about this movie was that strong and that's why I give this movie a 6.5/10. It isn't the best movie in the genre, but could have been a lot worse than this.


22 of 34 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
girls Acidrush1
Worst Ending EVER?!? tstone-4
huh? can someone explain this movie to me :-/ Mic21
Ok here is an answer there are no plot holes scout4583
the weather hcmort
What's with Giovanni Ribisi's funny voice! dominodamsel
Discuss Basic (2003) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?