10 More Awesome Plot Twists That Totally Saved Terrible Movies
1. Everyone's Still Alive, Hardy Isn't A DEA Agent - Basic
Depending on who you ask, John McTiernan's Basic is either an ingenious, tightly wound mystery thriller or an incomprehensible salad of nonsense.
It is, to be clear, convoluted to the point of self-parody, but that doesn't mean it doesn't serve up a riotous smattering of amusingly over-the-top twists.
Long story short, Basic revolves around DEA Agent Tom Hardy (John Travolta), who investigates the mystery of a botched military training exercise at an Army base in Panama which has left numerous soldiers either dead or missing.
Hardy probes the survivors for their accounts of what happened, but at film's end we learn that Hardy is actually not quite who he claims he is.
Hardy isn't a DEA Agent but the Colonel of a covert black-ops anti-drug unit called Section 8.
Moreover, he has been in league with the dead and missing men, who are actually alive, including unit leader Sergeant West (Samuel L. Jackson).
Their goal all along? To shut down cocaine trafficking in the base, eliminate the soldiers responsible, and safely exfiltrate West by faking his death.
It's a total noodle-baker of a twist bombardment that totally flips the movie on its head, even if the work getting there isn't necessarily the most rewarding.