Average Rating: 4.5/10
Reviews Counted: 141
Fresh: 30 | Rotten: 111
Basic gets so needlessly convoluted in its plot twists that the viewer eventually loses interest.
Average Rating: 4.8/10
Critic Reviews: 34
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 26
Basic gets so needlessly convoluted in its plot twists that the viewer eventually loses interest.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 54,680
The disappearance of a military leader and the death of four of his men leads two investigators to wade through a morass of deceptions and half-truths in search of the facts in this thriller. Sgt. Nathan West (Samuel L. Jackson) is the leader of an elite team of U.S. Army Special Forces operatives known as the Army Rangers; West is known as a highly effective officer, but one with a short temper and aggressive attitude who is not well liked by his soldiers. During a seemingly routine training
Mar 28, 2003 Wide
Jul 8, 2003
$26.5M
Sony Pictures Entertainment
All Critics (153) | Top Critics (35) | Fresh (35) | Rotten (112) | DVD (28)
Director John McTiernan does a swell job with James Vanderbilt's sneaky script in keeping us guessing.
You can fall asleep in the first reel, wake up at the end, and know as much as anyone else.
Made up of remnants from other, better films.
Nothing is as it appears, except the fact that nothing is as it appears.
[Basic] had a great sense of itself and it had a lot of fun taking us from one corner to the next and then spinning us around until we got dizzy and didn't know where we were. I like that.
Travolta is a vital presence that constantly holds our attention, even when the script is threatening to lose it.
Basically bad and sorry attempt at a thriller.
Best described as military noir, Basic reunites John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in a kind of Pulp Fiction with rain and fatigues, plus a chaser of Rashomon on the side.
McTiernan's bitten off way more than he could chew, spicing up the Usual Suspects approach with a dash of Rashomon and a little of help from A Few Good Men.
Basic is one of those rare movies without even a single redeeming quality.
The problem is that we've been given nothing to make us care for any of these people, so when the mysteries unravel there's nothing in the answers that hit us at a gut level.
A estrutura narrativa (obviamente inspirada em Rashomon) é interessante, mas a necessidade de criar reviravoltas surpreendentes praticamente destrói o filme, já que, ao final da projeção, nada mais faz sentido.
Full of twists and turns, but none of them particularly exciting, it's almost a film that tries too hard, the filming, I felt was a little too dark, visually speaking. Watchable, but easily forgettable.
August 4, 2006Super Reviewer
The movie was alright, but I wish they'd not pulled out the oldest story from the book for the ending. As if this weren't enough, its predictable twist is followed by several unpredictable twists. Now, this might be a positive point for some, but it turned me off. Besides being totally unnecessary, these twists were
February 11, 2011Super Reviewer
| 35% | The Hangover Part II |
| 25% | Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Par... |
| 81% | Kung Fu Panda 2 |
| 44% | Cowboys & Aliens |
| 83% | Rise of the Planet of the Apes |
| 25% | Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Par... |
| 88% | Lady and the Tramp |
| 69% | A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas |
| 21% | Fireflies in the Garden |
| 45% | The Rebound |
What are his 10 best movies ever?
See the all-new action-packed trailer!
Five new Marvelous pictures
Unconventional Superheroes