The story follows a DEA agent solving the mystery of a bungled training exercise that leads to the deaths of multiple Army Ranger trainees and their instructor.

During a live fire exercise in the jungles of Panama, a team of Army Rangers trainees is led by instructor and Master Sergeant Nathan West.

Dunbar refuses to talk to Military Police investigator Captain Julia Osborne and insists on speaking to a fellow Ranger from outside the base, drawing an '8' on a piece of paper.

The post commander, Colonel Bill Styles, calls in his friend: interrogator, ex-Ranger and now DEA agent Tom Hardy, and assigns him to aid Osborne.

Kendall, the homosexual son of a Joint Chiefs of Staff general, claims that West hated him and may have ordered a "training accident" on him.

Dunbar claims that Kendall is lying, that Mueller and his fellow trainee Castro were illegally selling prescription drugs and that West became aware of their operation.

The agents infiltrated the base undercover to investigate cocaine trafficking and discovered that Mueller, Kendall and Vilmer were responsible.

Impressed by her work, Hardy offers Osborne a job in the unit, along with the revelation that his position as a DEA agent are a cover; he actually remains in the Army as Section 8's Colonel.

In May 2000, it was announced Phoenix Pictures had acquired James Vanderbilt's thriller script Basic for $400,000 against $700,000 following a heated bidding war with several other studios.

"[9] Basic earned $11.5 million in its opening weekend, ranking behind Head of State, Bringing Down the House, and The Core.

The website's critical consensus reads: "Basic gets so needlessly convoluted in its plot twists that the viewer eventually loses interest.

"[13] Marjorie Baumgarten of The Austin Chronicle commended Travolta and Jackson for delivering "a couple of fun, over-the-top moments" and Ribisi for scenery chewing "like nobody's business", but felt the film comes across as a "preposterous" mess, saying, "It begins in a muddle and ends in confusion.

"[14] Chuck Randolph of Slant Magazine was mixed on the overall cast's performances, commended McTiernan's "efficient technical direction", and criticized the multiple twist endings for putting the film's "straightforward" action thriller story into "kindergarten territory", saying that "Basic is actually boiled down to the most uncomplicated of summations: it makes absolutely no sense.

"[15] Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide gave it two stars out of four and wrote that the film "keeps adding layers of confusion so that it becomes less interesting as it goes along!