Basic (2003)

The truth can be the hardest thing to find when everyone has a reason to lie. John McTiernan's "Basic," written by James Vanderbilt, from the director of "Die Hard," is a military mystery that, like "The Recruit," prizes clever deception above all, sharing both its strengths and its weaknesses. John Travolta, full of swaggering confidence, stars as Tom Hardy, a cocky former Army Ranger turned DEA agent under a cloud of suspicion, who's called in by an old friend, a base commander (Tim Daly), to help a tough, by-the-book military police investigator (Connie Nielsen). Their case: the disappearance of a hated, sadistic drill sergeant (Samuel L. Jackson) during a live-fire training exercise in the hurricane-lashed jungles of Panama, where most of his squad of trainees has also vanished and the only two survivors (Giovanni Ribisi, in a showy role, and Brian Van Holt) tell wildly conflicting stories. As the investigators question them, the truth unfolds in a series of shifting, "Rashomon"-style flashbacks, with each account revealing new secrets, possible murders and hints of a drug-trafficking ring on the base. Harry Connick Jr. co-stars as an Army doctor. Tricky enough to hold your attention, it grows less meaningful as it goes, and it's so in love with its own cleverness that its final twist falls flat. A second viewing might be rewarding, if only to confirm that it all holds together.