Travolta, Jackson the same as always

John Travolta plays the typical "look how cool I am" character and Samuel L. Jackson plays the "badman mofo" in "Basic." By now Jackson has this type of character down but the rest of the actors just seem to be floating through their performances.\n"Basic" is the story of a training operation gone awry. Jackson, the commander that everyone hates, appears to have died in an assassination attempt by one of his own. When only two men make it back alive, former army ranger Tom Hardy (Travolta) is brought in to assist Lt. Osborne (Connie Nielsen), who has little experience, to help solve the case. \nTravolta does have a spotty track record, having played the same stereotypical character ever since "Face/Off," but his character comes off rather well and with little effort. Nielsen also has to be careful -- she's good at her job, but not welcome as an outsider, which is the idea she played with in "The Hunted." Coming from both "Gladiator" and "Rushmore," she should strive to challenge herself.\nWhat "Basic" turns into is a movie of comparing what one troop says to another. Osborne and Hardy travel back and forth from building to building and uncover a drug scandal by interrogating the two remaining troops. Just when things starts to clear up, the movie starts throwing in twists. \nThere are literally five twists right in row as the movie comes to a close, which both helps and hurts the plot. To its credit, movie endings rarely surprise me any more, but this one did. These twists work in the sense that they are not out of the blue, but based on information used through the entire movie. \nBut it's not enough to save "Basic." Until the final 20 minutes, the film was relatively boring. With so many plot changes so near to the end, it leaves a little confusion as to who is bad, who is good, who is who and exactly what happened out in the jungle. It seems as if the director (John McTiernan of "Die Hard") is hoping that surprises will distract the viewer from the fact nothing much was solved by the end.