Fails the Bechdel test

Basic

Name: Basic
Released: 2003

2003. Directed by John McTiernan, written by James Vanderbilt.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

1 / 3

Fails

Yes 1. At least two women
4 women characters. 2 of them speak.
No 2. Who talk to each other
Our parser found no scene where two women talk to each other.
No 3. About something besides a man
Not reached: the film fails an earlier rule.

Second opinion

Disagree bechdeltest.com readers give it 3 out of 3, though someone marked that rating as dubious.

The film

Tom Hardy, an ex-Army Ranger turned DEA agent, is drawn into an ever-widening mystery surrounding the disappearance of the feared and often hated Sgt. Nathan West, as well as several of his elite Special Forces trainees on what appears, at first, to have been a routine training exercise during a hurricane in the jungles of Panama. Only two survivors are found, Dunbar, and a badly wounded Kendall, the son of a high-profile Joint Chiefs of Staff official. Neither is willing to cooperate with Capt. Julia Osborne's investigation. So base commander Col. Bill Styles calls in ex-Ranger Hardy, an old friend and a persuasive interrogator. Osborne disapproves of Hardy who is on leave from the D.E.A. after having come under suspicion of accepting bribes from local drug traffickers. She is also uneasy when she learns that Hardy once trained under West and hates him almost as passionately as his current recruits. 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. When they later interview Kendall, he confirms that the other Rangers and West are dead. But, in almost every other way, his story contradicts Dunbar's. What happened to West and his Ranger team? And what were they really doing out there in the jungle? As each layer reveals more lies and greater deceptions, Hardy and Osborne inch towards the horrible truth about the fate of the missing Rangers.

Released: 28 Mar 2003
Genres: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Rated: R
IMDb: 6.4 / 10
Metascore: 34 / 100
Awards: 3 nominations total
Elsewhere: View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

Women
Men
Not in the cast list
Bigger name, more lines

Hardy 294 lines, man
Osborne 168 lines, woman
Dunbar 150 lines, man
Kendall 103 lines, man
Pike 73 lines, man
Styles 73 lines, man
West 48 lines, man
Mueller 44 lines, man
Childs 33 lines, man
Nunez 14 lines, woman

Full cast, 22 people

John Travolta as DEA Agent Tom Hardy
Connie Nielsen as CPT Julie Osborne
Samuel L. Jackson as Drill Sgt. SFC Nathan West
Tim Daly as COL Bill Styles
Giovanni Ribisi as 2LT Levi Kendall
Brian Van Holt as SGT Ray Dunbar
Taye Diggs as Pike
Dash Mihok as SGT Mueller
Cristián de la Fuente as Castro
Roselyn Sánchez as Nuñez
Harry Connick Jr. as Dr. Pete Vilmer
Margaret Travolta as Nurse #1
Dena Johnston as Nurse #2
Nick Loren as Helicopter Pilot
Cliff Fleming as Helicopter Pilot
Steven Maye as CID Officer
Jonathan Rau as G.I. on the Tarmac
Tait Ruppert as Jeep Driver
Timothy S. Wester as Doctor
Chris Byrne as MP
Curtis Ricks as MP
Charles L. Fails as MP

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 3 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 3% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 138

Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.

Show the numbers

Scenes	Women's lines	Men's lines
1 to 3	0	4
4 to 6	0	7
7 to 9	6	29
10 to 12	13	35
13 to 15	2	18
16 to 18	0	10
19 to 21	4	16
22 to 24	0	26
25 to 27	0	2
28 to 30	0	4
31 to 33	3	18
34 to 36	15	18
37 to 39	4	24
40 to 42	3	26
43 to 45	1	19
46 to 48	0	33
49 to 51	4	42
52 to 54	0	1
55 to 57	6	28
58 to 60	12	30
61 to 63	2	13
64 to 66	1	6
67 to 69	3	47
70 to 72	0	14
73 to 75	0	2
76 to 78	0	4
79 to 81	1	54
82 to 84	3	10
85 to 87	15	43
88 to 90	15	21
91 to 93	0	5
94 to 96	7	23
97 to 99	18	29
100 to 102	5	10
103 to 105	6	31
106 to 108	0	7
109 to 111	1	6
112 to 114	18	40
115 to 117	10	37
118 to 120	1	4
121 to 123	1	17
124 to 126	1	2
127 to 129	0	6
130 to 132	1	6
133 to 135	0	10
136 to 138	0	4

The evidence

Straight from the script
Counted from the script and the credits

Tap an exhibit to open it.

Exhibit A: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 18 are women's.

182 lines from women, 841 from men.

Women
Men

Exhibit B: who's in it

4 women and 18 men in the cast. 2 women and 10 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

Women
Men

Exhibit C: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 32 of 1,051. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 64 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

First line by a woman
Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 13% of the words (1,581), men 87% (10,492). Women have 18% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.

Exhibit D: the test the other way

Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.

Conversations between two named characters

Two women

Two men

104

Exhibit E: behind the camera

1 of the 11 people in these jobs is a woman. Across the whole crew, 21% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by: John McTiernan (man)
Written by: James Vanderbilt (man)
Produced by: Mike Medavoy (man), James Vanderbilt (man), Michael Tadross (man), Arnold Messer (man)
Shot by: Steve Mason (man)
Edited by: George Folsey Jr. (man)
Music by: Klaus Badelt (man)
Production design by: Dennis Bradford (man)
Cast by: Patricia McCorkle (woman)