The Base

This is a highly entertaining cat-and-mouse movie between Mark Dacascos and Tim Abell. Dacascos is sent into a military base to do undercover search concerning drug traffic. It seems some soldiers are not playing by the book... Enjoyable performances from both Dacascos and Abell, particularly the latter.

Why do film makers continue to portray the military so poorly. Regardless of their intent, they could at least make an attempt to be accurate with regard to uniforms, military procedure and terminology, and weapons.

This movie was so silly I had to watch the whole thing just to see how really poor it could be. The people making this movie certainly had delusions of adequacy.

The movie shows how an army base can be turned out to be not such a respectable place to be for soldiers. A senior army officer who leads a group of young men into drug trafficking. The plot is okay. Clear & logical. Fighting scenes causes blood to spill. Explosive action. The crew did well to impress me. A great job done.

THE BASE is from a period in Mark Dacascos's filmography regularly highlighted by decent stories, good production values, and limited action, and this one exemplifies all of these qualities. It's a mildly exciting action-thriller with some highlights in its script, and it manages to secure a high rating by avoiding many direct-to-video snafus and pitfalls. Nevertheless, it's a little dull and not quite the ideal Dacascos vehicle.

The story: An Army Major (Dacascos) goes undercover to investigate a drug trafficking ring led by a dangerous Sergeant (Tim Abell).

Much of the film's overall quality seems to be attributable to director Mark Lester, who to this day remains on the same downward slide from his heyday of directing COMMANDO but nevertheless injects invaluable energy into the picture - making the most of what would otherwise have been a much more run-of-the-mill outing with a low budget. The script has some basic shortcomings, including the thankless and clichéd role it renders Paula Trickey, but I was pleased with the surprising depth that Tim Abell's character is granted. Abell pulls it off fairly well, doing a good job of playing a manipulator and appearing absolutely authentic as a military man.

Dacascos is on less even ground: he tends to play awkward villains to begin with, and does no better in playing a hero pretending to be a villain. Nevertheless, he's in good form when it comes to the action. I wish that there were more than three fistfights, a handful of shootouts, and a couple explosions, but by and large, this stuff is serviceable. Mark throws a lot of spinning kicks and at times appears to be channeling his rarely-utilized capoeira training. I particularly enjoyed the first brawl, wherein Dacascos takes on Darcas Macopson in a surprisingly dirty kendo duel. The finale between Mark and Tim Abell is yards better than anything they got up to in INSTINCT TO KILL.

If there's one major flaw to the movie, it's that it does not take any chances. The filmmakers may have been trying to replicate the big-budget experience for the small screen, though they would arguably have been much better served producing a movie less homogenized and predictable, as is allowed by the DTV medium. Nevertheless, if you're a viewer who complains about the failings of B-movies, then the solid, conventional route this one takes will probably be considered a plus factor. Dacascos fans are encouraged to check it out.

Military Intelligence Officer, Major Murphy is assigned to go undercover on a military base to expose a drug smuggling ring which is run by a group of soldiers and a senior officer. Murphy goes undercover and attempts to infiltrate the group as they begin to move in on the existing dealers.

The plot behind this is pretty weak - a group of soldiers are running round killing drug dealers and running drugs themselves, and they don't raise any major suspicions outside of the base and some military intelligence officers. Surely the police or someone would have picked up on this without having to start an internal covert op to get any evidence. Outside of that it's so-so but don't bring your brain.

The plot doesn't allow that much action. Sure there's plenty of shootouts with drug dealers but Dacascos doesn't have too many opportunities to do his martial arts stuff. There's a fight when he first enters the base and there's the final fight at the end, but other than that it relies on the plot to drive it. Unfortunately even the shoot outs aren't great and the film doesn't totally deliver on the action.

What is good is the two main performances and the sense of drama. Dacascos is good, but he's a little too pretty to be believable, and too much is made of how good he looks on a motorbike. Although he does give a good performance because he's got the looks and talent of someone who should be a bigger star. Tim Abeck is really good as the corrupt Sergeant Gammon, he brings a great sense of military meanness to the role and is believable psychotic. Unfortunately all the gangsters are played by Espanic stereotypes and the military base constantly has groups of soldiers running around in groups (until there's a gun battle then the base is strangely deserted!).

Unusually for a Dacascos flick this is low on martial arts action and has good performances from the leads, but really this isn't any better than the usual straight to video stuff that Dacascos does.