Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
Dea officer is recruited to investigate the disappearance of a famed us army instructor & a group of cadets on a routine military exercise in the jungles of panama. Deception is their most dangerous weapon. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 11/15/2005 Starring: Samuel L Jackson Taye Diggs Run time: 99 minutes Rating: R Director: John Mctiernan

Amazon.com:
If you thought The Recruit was full of surprises, Basic will spin your head around. Assuming that cleverness is its own reward, this military mystery shares many of The Recruit's strengths and weaknesses, offering multi-layered deception as its dramatic raison d'etre. Copping plenty of machismo attitude 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 enamored 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

Rating : - Buy this movie
This movie was really good. Some people just don't appreciate these types of movies. After reading some of the other reviews, I can understand how some people did not like this movie. Some of the twists and events are fairly farfetched, but all movies are like that. If you go into a movie pessimistic than your bound to dislike it. I did like this movie very much, and I thought it had a lot of qualities that made it a very compelling story. The character played by John Travolta is a quick-witted DEA agent who doesn't follow the rules and is hard on the bottle. His counterpart, the character played by Connie Nielsen, is the exact opposite; a very by-the-book kind of person who never deviates from her objective. Together, they have the task of finding out what happened to a group of army rangers during a training exercise in the jungles of Panama, where only one of them returned. This movie reminded me of Courage Under Fire, another war drama that involves the lengthy investigation of the deaths of soldiers during an unknown event. If you liked Courage Under Fire then you will love Basic because Basic has more action and great actors like John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson. This movie has so many twists that you have to pay attention to every second of the movie, but that's easy because the movie is so intensely entertaining. You may not get the story the first time watching the movie but the second time you will and you'll be glad you did. Another winning quality of this movie that had me going was the grade-A cast. The entire cast was spot on in the movie and every word and action was totally convincing and compelling. I didn't even recognize one of the actors in the movie until the very end, when she was in civilian clothes. That's how well they were played. Every movie that Samuel L. Jackson is usually good because he is such a unique character and I thought he was excellent in the movie. If you like Samuel L. than you'll like this movie because he acts the stereotype of the sadistic drill sergeant to the bone. Overall I thought Basic was a superb movie with its ridiculous twists and witty remarks. You cannot go wrong renting this movie, and after watching it you will be that much cooler.