Basic (2003)This is a John Travolta - Samuel L Jackson collaborated movie that did not stir much of attention and did not hit it big at the box office. Their first one was of course Pulp Fiction (1994).
The story is told in such a complicated way, in a Rashomon manner but with characters changing names that most viewers lost it. The story finally makes sense at the end but by then it appeared too far-fetched.
It tells the story of US Army Rangers who are training in Panama. A hard talking strict trainer is killed. Tom Hardy, a DEA Agent with a shady past, is called in to help out to get to the bottom of the problem. Two Rangers, who are rescued from the hurricane hit jungles of Panama where the crime took place, have different versions of what happened.
Further investigation opens the can of worms of racial discrimination, camaraderie, back-biting, factions, conspiracy and smuggling of illicit drugs into the US using army vehicles. Despite the confusion, the storyteller manages to keep the element of suspense until the end with a twist to the story at the end.
The message learnt from his movie is reminiscent of what we acquired in the history of humankind. There is no such thing as the real unabashed truth. It is what the collective group agrees on. If somebody says that an event happened in a particular way and everybody else vouches for it, so be it. It will be down in the history books as such. The voice of the minority and those not speaking the same language are muffled. Like Goebbels (and perhaps Lenin too) is said to have mentioned, "A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth".
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