tfl: The Flatiron Life

Last night I saw one of the worse movies I have ever seen.
Basic is basically crap. John Travolta acted as well as he usually does and Samuel L. Jacksonwas his typical bad ass. Travolta’s character, Agent Tom Hardy, could have been much rounder but he did well with the lines he was given. Jackson is typically a scene stealer and directors try to put hem in as much as possible, but he was used rather stingingly as Sgt. Nathan West. The rest of the acting lest much to be desired. The Female lead is Connie Nielsen (Lucilla from Gladiator), Lt. Julia Osborne, and she is horrible! The lines are repetitive and she has this unusual accent which might be how Danes think southerners sound. The Commander of the base where the movie is set is Timothy Daly of NBC Wings fame. He plays the character as well as he could, but like the others the lines were missing. The rest of the cast plays a group of Army Rangers. Taye Diggs and Giovanni Gibisi (Frank Buffay Jr form Friends) are the ones you might know. Giovanni’s character is homosexual and apparently to Giovanni, the director, or somebody has a very bazaar thought how homosexuals sound and act after being shot!

As for the director John McTiernan diverges from the typical great gratuitous thrillers like Die Hards and Hunt for Red October to make this with horrible camera angles, lighting and blah.

The real culprit of this mess is the writer James Vanderbilt. This is only his second writing credit and perhaps it should be the beginning of the end. There is a weak plot and in the end you can explain to yourself how the things happened in the movie, but you have no idea why. This is one of those movies that take a lot of twists and turns. Usually in these movies you are left with one of two feelings. Awe, I see what happened, because most everything is explained in the end. Or you are left with, Wow!, like in the great Fight Club or the Travolta/Jackson Pulp Fiction. you are left with neither of these. What you are left with is a wish for you $9.50 back.

I think that the production team may have been aiming for Pulp Fiction in the jungles of Panama, but landed in a quagmire of pitiful twists and lackluster lines.