Basic (R) ★½

A DEA agent investigates the disappearance of an elite squad of Army Rangers in Panama.

Story

With its twisty-turning plot and military setting, Basic could be the love child of an illicit affair between The Usual Suspects and The General's Daughter; it even borrows the star of the latter. In Basic John Travolta plays Tom Hardy, a former Army Ranger and interrogator extraordinaire who's now a DEA agent in Panama suspended from duty on suspicion of bribery. He's hitting the rebellious law enforcement officer's requisite bottle of Jack Daniels heavily--until an old friend on the local army base, Col. Bill Styles (Tim Daly), calls him in to investigate the disappearances and probable deaths of an elite group of trainees and their commander, Sgt. Nathan West (Samuel L Jackson), during a training session in the Panamanian jungle. Staff investigator Lt. Julia Osbourne (Connie Nielsen), a plucky Southern gal who's none too pleased with Hardy's invasion of her turf, is assigned to help Hardy question the unit's surviving members, Kendall (Giovanni Ribisi) and Dunbar (Brian Van Holt). As their stories unfold over a series of flashbacks, the interrogators discover a military underworld of drugs, murder and coercion--and the mysterious existence of a rogue Ranger unit called ''Section 8.'' Now, for an interrogation of our own. Is the plot convoluted? Sir, yes sir! Is it too tricky for its own good? Sir, yes sir! Thank you, soldier. You may stand down.

Acting

The trigger-finger pointing, winking, cluck-clucking, ''gotcha'' persona Travolta (Swordfish, Domestic Disturbance) creates in Hardy is as appropriate to the story as it can possibly be; the way he manipulates his subjects under interrogation is much the same way the story manipulates its audience. He leads them--and the observant Lt. Osbourne--to believe one thing, then pulls the rug out from under them to prove the old cliché of military movies: that nothing is as it seems. In Nielsen's (The Hunted, One Hour Photo) Osbourne we're given a character who could lead us through the jungle of the plot (she discovers the ''facts'' at the same time as the audience, so her reaction is meant, I suppose, to be ours), but since Hardy spends much of his time making her look and feel like an idiot, she comes off as one and, frankly, so do we. The talented Jackson (Changing Lanes) mostly does the bellowing drill sergeant bit, while Ribisi (Heaven) as the homosexual son of a high-ranking general talks like he has cotton wool in his mouth and moves and twitches like he's mildly brain-impaired. (His character's not supposed to be; he only got shot in the leg.) One bright spot in this movie is the featured role for hunky Van Holt (Windtalkers, Black Hawk Down), whose chiseled good looks and heroic demeanor make him a shoo-in should anyone ever make a live-action Johnny Bravo movie.

Direction

Director John McTiernan has given audiences some heavy-duty action in Die Hard, Die Hard With a Vengeance and The Hunt for Red October, but he's also the director who brought us such gems as Rollerball and Last Action Hero, so it's not surprising that in Basic we get some action and intrigue paired with the out-there story stylings and narrative confusion of some of his less successful work. Here, each flashback brings new information that conflicts with what we've been told before, and the story never really resolves those conflicts in any satisfying way. The ''big twist'' at the end, instead of bringing it all together, creates gaping holes in the plot or, at least, creates so much doubt in the story we've just spent an hour and a half watching that it's easy to get fed up with trying to figure it out. Naturally, no one likes to be spoon-fed plot resolutions, but in order for twists to work they have to give the audience something to focus its doubt on--they can't just call the whole kit and caboodle into question. We have to be able eventually to figure it out. But hey, maybe we aren't supposed to work out the details; after all, this movie, with its catchy, one-word title and colorful cast of characters, is just begging for a sequel: Basic 2: Explaining the First Movie.

Bottom Line

Basic is an OK ride that ends in a train wreck of a plot twist that's more annoying than intriguing.