The Base

[1999, Movie]

The Base: Review

This assembly-line adventure about a few rotten apples spoiling an entire military bunch backs up its paranoid fancies with top-of-the-line special effects and bare-knuckles bouts. Making use of enough artillery to wage a small war, the film excels in firepower while falling short in the realms of writing and direction. Army Intelligence officer Major John Murphy (Mark Dacascos) reluctantly agrees to assume a bent undercover identity in order to gain the trust of scurvy soldiers at Fort Tillman, a base near the US-Mexican border. Assigned to guard Uncle Sam's anti-drug interests, disgruntled Sgt. Gammon (Tim Abell) instead plays footsy with the south-of-the-border dealers and finds an ally in greedy General Becker (Frederick Coffin). Feeling underappreciated by his government, Gammon begins slaying the drug couriers, appropriates their goods and sets his crew to work distributing the drugs in Los Angeles. (Yep, soldiers by day, crack dealers by night.) As Murphy penetrates Gammon's vile inner circle, the danger -- and the body count -- begins to mount. One might believe that Gammon's goons are capable of pocketing a little hashish, but wholesale murder and coke-dealing? Fortunately for this far-fetched scenario, Dacascos is likeable as the straight-laced hero. Representing the dark side, Abell and his supporting thugs embody evil without resorting to nostril flaring or punching up their dialogue; they're all so securely immoral, the film never comes off as cartoonish. Short on ambiguity, this brutality bonanza is long on ammunition and a full range of soldier-boy weaponry. Could a paramilitary moviegoer ask for anything more? --Robert Pardi

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The Base

[1999, Movie]

The Base: Review

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