Dick Niro makes the acquaintance of The General’s Daughter, in which John Travolta and Madeleine Stowe uncover some pretty unpalatable secrets on a steamy US army base in Georgia.

BASE INSTINCTS

"She’s a woman who is very committed to solving the crime," says Madeleine Stowe of her starring role as an army investigator opposite John Travolta in The General’s Daughter. "But, during the course of the investigation, she and Brenner [the character played by Travolta, who is also with the Army Criminal Investigation Department] surreptitously work out their past relationship. And, as it turns out, she was a bit duplicitous in her love affair with him. She’s funny and kind of fiery and, at the same time, a little irrational about him."

John Travolta as maverick army cop Paul Brenner. His investigation into the murder of an ambitious young officer, who just happens to be the General’s daughter, reveals some secrets the Army would rather stayed hidden.

Nothing, as it turns out, is quite what it seems in The General’s Daughter, based on the best-selling novel by Nelson DeMille about a brutal and sexually charged murder on a US Army base somewhere in the American South. The victim - the General’s daughter of the title - is not as innocent as she seemed. The General himself has some secrets he’d rather didn’t get out. And, as Stowe points out, there are a few unresolved issues in the investigators’ past ("We’ll always have Brussels," remarks Brenner laconically at one point in the movie). Sunhill (Stowe’s character) and Brenner have quite a challenge if they are to track down the killer within 36 hours. Which, for reasons that will be explained in a moment, is all the Army is prepared to give them.

For the film-makers, there was another problem. The General’s Daughter, with its breathless murder investigation and its undercurrents of sadomasochism and sexual deviancy, was such a steamy story that many at first doubted it could be made into a mainstream film.

Former British TV and commercials director Simon West, who made his Hollywood feature debut with the hugely successful, adrenaline-packed Con-Air two summers ago, was initially among the doubters. And, even when he had been won over - partly by veteran producer Mace Neufeld but mainly by the screenplay written by Oscar-winner William Goldman and newcomer Christopher Bertolini - West realised that there were elements in DeMille’s story that would have to be handled with extreme care.