I am a fan of the 1999 direct to video film, The Base. It showed that just because it is direct to video, does not mean that it can still be a good action film. With that being said, a sequel would be fairly nice to have and a sort of sequel we got in 2000 titled, The Base 2: Guilty as Charged. The film is directed by Mark L. Lester (who previously directed The Base and is most famous for directing 1985's Commando). The film stars Antonio Sabato Jr. (The Big Hit and Shark Hunter) and James Remar (48 Hrs. And Hellraiser: Inferno). And funny enough, for those Mortal Kombat fans out there, you will notice Deron McBee who played Motaro in Mortal Kombat: Annhilation (which also starred James Remar) and also played in Batman: Forever. The more you know!
Army Investigator John Murphy is sent to go undercover at a base after the dissappearances of several soldiers. Essentially a re hash of the first film but instead of drugs, it's soldiers.
The Base 2: Guilty as Charged hardly qualifies as a sequel which is probably why the first name for this film is called "Guilty as Charged". The only real thing this film shares is name, a single shot of a bar that was in the previous film, and the plot which is just a big old rehash of the previous film but instead of drug smuggling. I honestly had relatively high expectations going into this because I really enjoyed the previous film. What I found odd about this film was surprisingly not James Remar, but rather not having the same actors play their characters (at least the ones that survived) and make another film. But now we have different characters (though they are pretty much the same cliches as seen previously). Where the first Base film stood out amongst the ranks of direct to video action movies, this one simply does not. There are very few action scenes in this film and nothing truly ground breaking in terms of direct to video. I would go on to say that the scenes just pass as being watchable enough to be entertaining. The whole undercover plot is interesting enough, but there is nothing new done with it this time around. Again, everything seen here is a big rehash. Our main lead is pretty mediocre and not really badass considering that he is not given any scenes where he can show off his badass skills. While doing some research on this film (which is basically just the less than 10 reviews on IMDb) apparantly this film is highly inaccurate when it comes to ranks and whatnot. Yeah, I found it weird that a full blown Colonel was in charge of a small little squad on a base. Plus the motives of this whole squad is strange. Sure, punishing those who are not properly punished by the court in itself is cliche enough but I guess it is a serious enough subject. But why put the squad in a bad light? Sure, certain crimes like arms smuggling would be really dumb to go and kill someone over but crimes like rape, I mean, go right ahead, punish away.
The Base 2: Guilty as Charge is not really great but has some charm to it that makes it entertaining for a viewing or two. Though, I would highly recommend the first Base film over this film any day of the week.
