2003 - Directed by John McTiernan
 Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Connie Neilsen, Tim Daly, Brian Van Holt, Taye Diggs and Giovanni Ribisi

 Christ almighty, this is a frustrating film.  On one hand there’s the logical part of me that wants to tell you that it’s overplotted and may not quite connect on all levels once the final act hits, but on the other hand there’s the part of me that always enjoys the sight of Travolta chewing scenery and the various players doing their own little character bits, most of which are interesting to watch.  Let me throw some plot at you, and then we’ll see how I feel once I run down the details a bit and realize what kind of holes there might be in there.

Opening in Panama, we watch as a group of Army Rangers are dropped into the jungles in the middle of a borderline hurricane for maneuvers.  17 hours later they’re meant to be extracted, but the chopper finds the 3 remaining Rangers engaged in live fire with one another, 4 of their group missing and presumed dead.

 Col. Styles (Daly) is the man in charge of the military base this squad originated from, and he calls in an old friend and former Ranger, Tom Hardy (Travolta) to interrogate the one soldier not wounded in the altercation, Lt. Dunbar (Van Holt).  The Provost Marshal on base Osborne (Neilsen) is naturally less than thrilled because this steps all over her toes and undermines her ability to interrogate the prisoner, but she really has no choice but to work with Hardy.

 They begin their interrogation of Dunbar, who spins a tale of the systematic abuse doled out by a Col. West (Jackson), their trainer, setting the stage for the events that took place in the jungle.  His tale casts a recruit named Pike (Diggs) as a frequent target for the man’s abuse and someone whose erratic behavior in the field precipitated the violence that followed, casting Pike as the villain of the piece.  Hardy seeks out the wounded man that Dunbar drug from the jungle, Kendall (Ribisi), who is the son of a military higher up and meant to be treated with kid gloves.

 Kendall is thick tongued (presumably meant to be from medication?), so he comes off like an odd combination of Orson Welles meets Silence Of The Lambs’ Buffalo Bill; Ribisi’s delivery is a strangely affected drawl as he tells his version of the tale.  Kendall reveals that he was put in West’s command as punishement for having a relationship with a local, his homosexuality being a strong bone of contention in the military environment.  Kendall reels off his slightly skewed version of the events, effectively turning the film into a more action-oriented version of Kurosawa’s Rashomon at this point. 

Drugs are eventually brought up, which Hardy believes is simply a gambit to shift focus away from the deaths at hand because he’s a DEA agent and he’s actually on the verge of leaving when he suddenly clicks on one particular detail that doesn’t match up between the two stories, sending he and Osborne back into the interrogations and another good half dozen twists and turns for the already convoluted plot.

 So between my recent re-watch of this and some time spent checking out numerous reviews of the film, I have to say that I liked this one more than I disliked it.  Most reviews seem to hammer it to death because of all the twists and possibly contradictory turns towards the end, where I’m willing to go with the flow and just enjoy the performances.  Okay, ‘cept for Giovanni Ribisi’s, I dunno what he was going for there, but he sounds like he’s doing some kinda gay Southern Godfather mumble, I just didn’t get it, but on the upside, it didn’t play that large of a role in things.

 So even though the film has possibly one or two too many twists for its own good, I’d still say that it’s worth a rental or another look for the performances herein and the stylish cinematography from director McTiernan.

 Give it a shot.

 6.5/10