Chris Byrne Movies

The disappearance of a military leader and the death of four of his men leads two investigators to wade through a morass of deceptions and half-truths in search of the facts in this thriller. Sgt. Nathan West (Samuel L. Jackson) is the leader of an elite team of U.S. Army Special Forces operatives known as the Army Rangers; West is known as a highly effective officer, but one with a short temper and aggressive attitude who is not well liked by his soldiers. During a seemingly routine training exercise in Panama, a hurricane sweeps in, and four of West's six men are dead, while West himself seems to have vanished. Eager to get the facts behind what happened, Col. Bill Styles (Tim Daly) assigns Capt. Julia Osborne (Connie Nielsen) to investigate. However, Osborne is having a hard time getting the two survivors to talk, so Styles brings in Tom Hardy (John Travolta), a former Army Ranger who served under West and became a first-class interrogator; Hardy later became a DEA agent, but left law enforcement after allegations of corruption. Hardy interviews Dunbar (Brian Van Holt), who claims that the four soldiers had been murdered, and West was killed in retaliation. Kendall (Giovanni Ribisi), the other survivor (whose father is a powerful officer) has a very different story of how the five men turned up dead, and it's up to Hardy and Osborne to determine who is telling the truth -- or if anyone is saying exactly what happened. Basic marked the first time John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson appeared in the same film together since their breakthrough roles in Pulp Fiction. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this modern noir-style drama, Claire (Elizabeth Rossa) is a former police officer who has drifted into an aimless funk. Her former husband Steve (Chris Byrne), however, pulls her out of her depression when he calls her, seeking her help. Steve has become the key suspect in the murder of a wealthy musician (Noel Harrison); it seems among the pianist's many eccentricities, he decided to embrace a life of celibacy. However, his wife Allison (Jennifer Starr) had no interest in putting her sexual appetites on hold, and was dallying with a number of men, including Steve. While Steve admits his affair with Allison, he states emphatically that he is innocent of the murder, and Claire begins to search for whoever might be responsible for the crime. Noel Harrison, who plays the murdered musician, had a briefly successful career as a musician in the late 1960's and enjoyed a hit single with his cover of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne." Harrison wrote and performed several original songs for The Murder In China Basin, which was screened at the 1999 Dances With Films Festival of the Unknowns. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi