bjarias A twenty-six year old Claire Forlani might be one of the better reasons to give this film a try. But it's not enough to make you stick with it till the very end. For half way through you may become really challenged, and begging to want to abandon it, if you have not already. Just because it is a period piece, for those partial to them, it's not anywhere near one of better quality. Story-line and acting are just too weak, and it's believed the former detracts from the latter. Except possibly in the one actor's case, for try as I want, I've yet to see her perform with above average ability in any production to date. She's beautiful for sure.. to this day, and most especially here in her late twenties. She makes a great model, as for acting, she's no Jessica Biel.

bkoganbing Jared Leto plays the title role in a film adaption of a novel by Wilkie Collins, not a guy terribly known to today's audiences, but who had a good popularity in his day. He was a good friend of Charles Dickens and this film Basil is kind of like a dark version of David Copperfield.Derek Jacobi lends his presence to this film as Leto's very proper Victorian gentleman father whose strict standards cause him to lose the affections of both his sons who grow up to be Ralph Bonham Carter and Leto. As a young kid Leto catches his father en flagrato with another woman so when his beloved and sickly mother dies, Leto is rather inclined to do like Dad does, not like he says.All of which makes him putty in the hands of Christian Slater who has a deep seated hatred for Jacobi and you have to see the film to know what it's about. Content yourselves with what I've already told you Jacobi and you can figure it out. He and his girlfriend Clara Forlani set young Leto up good and proper and he becomes the second son to have been cast from his father and Bonham Carter was similarly thrown out.Like David Copperfield we see the protagonist over the years grow from little kid to full adulthood and like Copperfield, Basil gets involved with two women, the second being the one that counts in the person of Rachel Pickup, a young girl taken in by Jacobi and whom he grew up with. But some truly dark impulses involving sex and infidelity that Dickens would not have explored for a protagonist of one of his novels are present in Basil and in Christian Slater's character of John Mannion.Leto and Slater are present in this British Victorian novel clearly for American box office. Still both do an excellent job with Slater not even attempting a British accent in the tradition of Clark Gable from Mutiny On The Bounty. Basil is not in the league with that MGM classic, but it stands well on its own merits.

Starbuck-13 ... so I watched this one too. Well, it wasn't all that bad, but truth to be told, it wasn't that special as well.The actors, not only incredibly gorgious Claire but also Jared Lehto (who is developing into being a very fine mime), know how to do their job and so the lack of originality in the story does not hurt too much. Still, I think the big drama and the element of surprise come short and the solution of the plot somehow seems to have been there before...Still, time is never wasted when perfect beauty is displayed. Claire Forlani, have a great career!

Mysie Basil hooks up with the grungy Christian Slater, who helps hook him up with the object of his lust, played by Claire Forlani.And it all goes downhill from there. Seems like it might've been an ok Victoria melodrama to read, but on film, it's just boring.