Basic is a 2003 action/mystery film directed by John McTiernan.

Tagline: Deception is their most dangerous weapon.

A helicopter circles over the Panamanian jungle. On board is a team of Army Ranger trainees, and their commander, Sergeant Nathan West (Samuel L. Jackson). The team consists of six trainees: Pike, Dunbar, Kendall, Mueller, Nunez, and Castro. Their objective is to move through the jungle while a hurricane rages above, use live fire to hit targets, then rendezvous at a small shanty, where West will be waiting for them.

Seventeen hours later, Dunbar emerges from the jungle carrying a wounded Kendall on his back. He exchanges fire with Mueller, killing him, before being picked up by another military helicopter. Apparently, the mission has gone horribly wrong. The rest of the team, and West, are presumed dead.

Back at the base interrogation room, Captain Julia Osborne makes little headway with Dunbar, who refuses to talk. Dunbar insists on speaking to a fellow Ranger from outside the base, and draws a mysterious "8" on a piece of paper. Upon seeing the 8, base commander Bill Styles (Timothy Daly) calls in an experienced interrogator, Tom Hardy (John Travolta) an ex-Ranger. Hardy and Osborne, initially wary of each other, are forced to work together.

Shortly after arriving, Osborne witnesses Styles taking Hardy aside for a private conversation. The nature of this conversation is not revealed. Hardy begins to work on Dunbar:

Sergeant West was famous for being tough-as-nails and hated by his cadets. One cadet in Dunbar's unit, a black man named Pike, earned West's wrath more than any other.

Pike was selected for the Panama training mission, along with Dunbar, Kendall, Mueller, Nunez, and Castro, immediately after they returned from a grueling hike. Since he seemed to have plenty of reason to hate West, it is suggested that Pike might have had a murderous motive.

At this point, Dunbar refuses to say anything more

Hardy and Osborne then go to the other surviving team member, Kendall, who is in the hospital. At the hospital, Hardy meets up with Dr. Peter Vilmer (Harry Connick Jr.), an old friend. Apparently, Vilmer is also Osborne's on-again, off-again lover.

Kendall is the son of an influential general. It is revealed that he is gay. He tells Hardy and Osborne that West always hated him. In the helicopter, shortly before the mission, Kendall began fearing that West might try to kill him while they were in the jungle below.

In the jungle, Kendall claims Pike killed West with a phosphorous grenade, freely admitting to the rest of the team his actions when he showed up at the rendezvous bunker. He had hoped the rest of the team would sympathize. However, the team decided to turn Pike in when they would be picked up the next morning. In the middle of the night, Pike tried to rouse Kendall's sympathies by playing to their mutual hatred of West. Pike proposed they kill Nunez and Castro, saying Mueller and Dunbar would be easy to convince to side with them. Kendall dismissed Pike, then went back to his sleeping area, but later spotted Pike whispering to Dunbar.

According to Kendall, Dunbar then went back to his bag, grabbed his pistol, and shot Castro. A firefight ensued, in which most of the team was killed and Kendall shot. Dunbar then carried the wounded Kendall on his back through the jungle, exchanged fire with Mueller, and was picked up, as seen in the beginning of the movie.

Dunbar, upon further questioning, says that Kendall is lying. He claims that Mueller and Kendall were taking illegal steroid cocktails, and that it was Mueller that shot Sergeant West, then detonated Pike's grenade, which he had stolen. He then tried to pin blame for the murder on Pike. During an argument at the rendezvous point, Mueller shot Pike, and all hell broke loose. Dunbar rescued Kendall with the intent of turning him in, hiked through the jungle, and was picked up by the helicopter.

She is also uneasy when she learns that Hardy once trained under West and hates him almost as passionately as his current recruits. However, Hardy proves to be an excellent interrogator, as he corners both Dunbar and Kendall for what really happened in the jungle. With time running out, Hardy and Osborne call a temporary, if uneasy, truce. Hardy cajoles a confession out of Dunbar, who claims that Sgt. West and the missing Rangers have been murdered and their bodies blown away by the hurricane. He also reveals that it was Vilmer who supplied steroids and drugs to Mueller and Kendall.

When Osbourne and Hardy return to the hospital, they speak briefly with Dr. Vilmer. After a short - and illegaly brutal - interrogation, he admits that he provided Mueller and Kendall steroid cocktails and then switched their urine during drug tests. Vilmer is placed under arrest.

Hardy and Osborne then go to confront Kendall, who refuses to give them any useful information and insists that Dunbar is the guilty one. Suddenly, Kendall starts vomiting blood and dies. However, right before Kendall died, he used his blood to draw an "8" on Osborne's hand. She shows this to Hardy, who first denied then he takes her aside and explains the conversation he had earlier with Styles. Section 8 is rumored to be a rogue group of Rangers trained under West who turned and started dealing drugs.

Styles, incensed with Osborne and Hardy's tactics in interrogating Vilmer, relieves them of duty. Styles claims Dunbar is guilty, plain and simple, and that the case is closed.

Nonetheless, Hardy and Osborne go to release Vilmer to tranport. He say he'll be on the same plane back to Washington as Pike. Hardy corrects him, saying that he'll be on the same plane as Dunbar, but Vilmer persists - Dunbar, he says, is black. This means that the "Dunbar" Hardy and Osborne have been questioning is in fact Pike, the man whom West so hated during training. Hardy and Osborne rush back to the base just as Pike is being taken onto a transport plane.

In Pike's new story, West was not shot, but had figured out the drug plot and showed up at the rendezvous bunker confronting the team. He tells the team that he had his suspicions but chose not to go to Colonel Styles until he knew for sure, and that he would turn them in to authorities in the morning. A firefight followed, which extended into the jungle. West was fatally wounded by Mueller, but survived long enough to pick off the members of the team one by one. Pike, knowing that he would be blamed if West died, took Dunbar's dog tags. He managed to escape, carrying Kendall through the jungle, and was picked up by the helicopter.

Hardy relates this story to Styles, but mentions that West's choice to wait doesn't add up. He tells Styles that he suspects West did in fact go to Styles, but that Styles was behind the drug dealing opperation the whole time. Rather than side with West, he ordered him killed. With Kendall and Mueller dead and Vilmer behind bars, Styles says that he can be back in business in no time and offers Hardy a bribe in order to keep him quiet. As Hardy turns to leave, Styles pulls a gun on him; he is in turn shot by Osborne who overheard the entire conversation.

After the military police wrap up the matter, Hardy passes a phrase to Osborne, who then suspects that there is more to Hardy than meets the eye. She tails him and sees him pick up Pike, and the two of them enter a doorway with a big eight ball hanging above it. Osborne sneaks up behind Hardy and pulls a gun on him, believing that he has masterminded Section 8's drug deals from the beginning. However, West comes up behind her and admonishes her. It is revealed that Section 8 is a special anti-drug unit founded by Sergeant West. Now that West and his team are all "officially" dead, the unit can operate with much more freedom than before. "Hardy," "Nunez," "Castro," "Pike," and "Dunbar" are all members. West offers Osborne a job. Osborne says she needs a beer.