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All Movie Info
Directed By
Paul Verhoeven
Written By:
Joe Eszterhas
Cast:
Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, George Dzundza, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Denis Arndt, Leilani Sarelle Ferrer, Bruce A. Young, Chelcie Ross, Dorothy Malone, Wayne Knight, Stephen Tobolowsky
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Basic Instinct (1992)
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Movie Review by Jarrod 
May 18th, 2008
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'Basic Instinct' is a trashy erotic thriller, with a frustrating plot structure that teases the audience unfairly, by running through a list of prime suspects, all of them women, and all of them lesbians, cycling back and forth, eliminating one, leading us to another, then suddenly switching gears again to throw us for a loop, introducing twists that cast blame on someone we never expected, then cheats with an arbitrary ending that renders much of what preceded it irrelevant. It is not necessarily hard to follow, this hot-blooded script by Joe Eszterhaus, but it can occasionally be confusing and not entirely interesting, and it works much better at suspense than it does at either mystery or action, and action moves to the forefront in the multiple car chases that occur, there are more of them than in most James Bond flicks, and one especially reminded me of Goldfinger. Michael Douglas is Nick Curran, a San Francisco detective hassled by Internal Affairs after accidentally shooting some tourists several years ago during a job, he must seek psychological counseling, from former girlfriend Elizabeth Garner (Jeanne Tripplehorn). About his only friend left on the force is the sympathetic Gus (George Dzundza). He and Gus investigate the gruesome ice pick murder of a retired rock star and club owner, found naked, tied to his bed, obviously killed during an especially kinky bout of intercourse.
This leads them to the man's lover, writer Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone); the murder was copied exactly from her most recently published novel, and she toys with the police during her interrogation, flashing her vagina and making smart remarks; there is an instant attraction between Tramell and Nick, he thinks she is guilty, no one believes him, he follows her around, she digs up stuff from his past, and he from hers, he encounters her lesbian partner Roxy (Leilani Sarelle), who seems resentful of the affair he has started with Catherine. Catherine obviously looks like she is capable of homicide, but so does Roxy, and the movie suggests that either of them could be the culprit, but effectively eliminates one of them (not hard to guess which), shifting culpability exclusively to the other, before an additional development complicates matters further, and brings in another likely suspect. I sort of got tired of being jerked around, and often felt like the film was wasting my time with extraneous details. At the core is the relationship between Nick and Catherine, who communicate through sexually-charged, needlessly playful dialogue.
There is no subtlety here; they have an almost immediate desire to ravage each other, but Nick first ravages Beth in what amounts to little more than anal rape, but then all the sex has a violent and animalistic tone to it. But the sex scenes themselves, or most of them, are electrifying; not terribly explicit, but Stone does full frontal nudity, and Douglas shows off his backside; the MPAA originally threatened an NC-17 rating until 45 seconds or so of material was cut to bring it down to an R. Once again, the double standard is exposed; the violence is at least as graphic if not more graphic than the sex, but that hardly affected the overall rating. The slick direction and pacing guarantee that 'Basic Instinct' is never exactly boring, but its technical craftsmanship is marred by the screenplay. Douglas, as usual, is great, but Stone is the real star, an absolute knockout in the role that made her an icon, at least for a while, she was not relevant again until Casino, I am sure she wanted everyone to forget her appearance in The Specialist alongside Sylvester Stallone.
Stone's acting is not outstanding; her emotional range is limited, but her sensuality and magnetism make up for it; that interrogation scene I mentioned earlier is one example; she is cold and aloof, realizing that she can use her body to manipulate men, look at the expression on Wayne Knight's face when he notices she is not wearing underwear; she is calm and relaxed, able to pass a polygraph with minimal effort. Lying, for her, is as easy as breathing. Dutch-born Paul Verhoeven preceded this film with two superlative sci-fi flicks, Robocop and Total Recall. He would follow 'Basic Instinct' with Showgirls, Starship Troopers, and Hollow Man.
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