Success on television doesn’t come bigger than NCIS. The franchise was conceived by Donald Paul Bellisario, a former sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps who had previously found success with the original Magnum P.I., starring Tom Selleck. JAG was the first show in the franchise, followed by NCIS. Since then, there have been five babies, namely : NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, NCIS: Hawaiʻi, NCIS: Sydney, and NCIS: Origins.
All NCIS shows stick to the same narrative formula. The Major Case Response Team (MCRT) of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service of the United States Department of the Navy investigates crimes committed by or linked to members of the United States Navy and Marine Corps (USMC), and their associated branches of government. Over 1000 episodes are available across all shows, hence fans of military procedurals have no shortage of stories to follow, but fans will also love Basic, a military thriller directed by Die Hard’s John McTiernan.
Samuel L. Jackson Is a Mean Drill Sergeant and John Travolta Is Investigating Ethical Violations in ‘Basic’
Basic reunites Samuel L. Jackson with John Travolta, but this time they aren’t as cordial as they were in Pulp Fiction. The film opens with the Drill Instructor Nathan West (Samuel L. Jackson) barking at soon-to-be Army rangers in the jungles of Panama. He is evil personified, commanding obedience and terror. Consequently, the trainees who were initially infatuated with military life have eventually become disenchanted with the whole fight-for-country idea.
As mean as a boot camp movie villain can be, he promises the young adults that “those of you I find lacking will quit, and those of you who refuse to quit will have a training accident.” When several death reports are filed, Military Police investigator Captain Julia Osborne (Connie Nielsen) is dispatched to the location to investigate. The trainees refuse to cooperate, so DEA agent Tom Hardy (John Travolta), who also happens to be an ex-Army Ranger, is brought in.
Hardy insists on keeping Osborne as a partner in the investigation, but establishing the truth becomes hard because everyone is giving conflicting accounts. Unwilling to give up, the investigators keep digging, and they soon uncover a major conspiracy. How will they deal? And does Hardy have a big enough pull to make the culprits pay? Well, he just might do something because there is a drug-dealing operation tucked somewhere inside the plot.
The film was developed after Phoenix Pictures won a major bidding war with other studios for James Vanderbilt’s script. Vanderbilt had made a name for himself at the turn of the century with the script for the horror flick, Darkness Falls, so everyone was confident his latest work would be successful. Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day) was initially tapped to direct, but he dropped out due to other commitments. Additionally, Benicio del Toro and Catherine Keener were meant to play the leads but they, too, couldn’t fit the military thriller into their schedules.
‘Basic’ Unfolds Like an ‘NCIS’ Episode
Replace John Travolta and Connie Nielsen’s characters with members of MCRT and you have an NCIS episode. Like the CBS show and its spinoffs, the John McTiernan picture heavily relies on interrogation to push the narrative. The plot is anchored by the testimony of witnesses and survivors, with those on the seat giving eye-opening or diversionary accounts, depending on their morality and interests.
From his early days as a filmmaker, John McTiernan recklessly mixed aestheticism, scheming, and showmanship. Such are always present whenever the MCRT investigators are in action. The film’s pace is decidedly measured, and, more often than not, the action makes way for dialogue, just as we tend to see on the small screen. On top of that, the extraordinary visuals are captured with elegance and extravagance by cinematographer Steve Mason.
Basic further mirrors the numerous NCIS shows via the mannerisms of the protagonists. Osborne is the one with a heart, who remains unwilling to cross any ethical lines, while Hardy does whatever needs to be done. The formula has been used by many of the greatest procedurals again and again. And it works well here. Hardy keeps digging, and for that, he is rewarded handsomely.
Still fresh in 2025 — perhaps because it makes us wonder how much has really changed for trainees in the military — Basic delivers thrill-inducing food for thought. Above all, the movie covers a few burning topics, something the CBS-based franchise strives for. It forces a reckoning with our conventional concepts of male masculinity and valor. Homophobia in the military gets touched on, as we learn that the gay son of a Joint Chiefs of Staff general might have been set up to die because of his sexual orientation. And that Sgt. West might have used his influence to turn the tide of goodwill against the man.
Additionally, there is the suggestion that America is partly to blame for the villains in its own stories. Some of the former trainees, having failed to make any progress under West’s tutelage, are now shown to be major criminals, thanks to the skills they learned from him.
Overall, Basic and the NCIS shows each make for great viewing and are easy to follow, despite their seemingly labyrinthine nature. There might be plenty of twists, but the final minutes sum everything up beautifully. Fewer productions are more fitting for both military junkies and casual audiences than these ones right here. The emphasis remains on the collective acts of bravery and selflessness, which remind audiences that even under horrific circumstances, human nature will always trump its basest instincts.
‘Basic’ Also Draws Inspiration From a Few Other Hollywood Films
Beyond NCIS, fans of military dramas will notice how Basic draws inspiration from a few other notable films. Rob Reiner’s A Few Good Men is the first notable muse. In the film, military lawyer Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) tries to pin Col. Jessep (Jack Nicholson) for the death of a marine at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Col. Jessep is as arrogant and remorseless as Samuel L. Jackson’s Sgt. West, but he eventually pays for his actions. Sgt. West also has the same personality as Sgt. Hartman (Lee R Emery) from Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. Yelling at trainees is what both men do best.
Going further, we see similarities between Travolta’s character and Lieutenant Colonel Nathaniel Serling (Denzel Washington) in Courage Under Fire, tasked with determining if, posthumously, a slain military captain should be the first woman to receive the Medal of Honor. As he gets testimony from members of the crew, he notices several inconsistencies, pointing him toward a conspiracy.
Basic is thus a major gift for the genre. It’s not perfect. At the hands of a more gifted filmmaker like Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, or Clint Eastwood, this could have been grand studio filmmaking at its artistic best, nabbing an armload of Academy Awards. But it works just fine if you aren’t watching it through the eyes of an award show judge. It is chock-full of shockers and includes several indelible set pieces only this specific filmmaker could conjure up.
