Basic Instinct

Rating:
Summary: worth it for stone alone
Review: i know i'm not supposed to, but i love this movie.

the real reason is sharon stone, who does seem to have a habit of selecting movies in which she is the only interesting actor. this is somewhat true of basic instinct; it is definitely her "star vehicle," and the whole movie is built around her very convincing show of sexual power. (you can see it even in her screen tests - examples of which are included on the dvd - although she had yet to nail the essential condescending cruelty of the character at this early stage.) the plot is completely unreasonable, as verhoeven himself admits: catherine trammel is literally clairvoyant to plan out her crimes with such impossible foresight. but stone convinces you to "suspend your disbelief." and even though you know she's guilty of a slew of heinous and inhuman killings, you want her to get away with it. crazy huh.

but the other actors are all up to par here; michael douglas is always convincing as a raving lunatic, jeanne tripplehorn pulls off her vaguely repressed-bisexual yet fundamentally well-intentioned psychiatrist, leilani sarelle serves up a male fantasy version of a homicidal butch/lipstick lesbian, and dorothy malone even drops in for a turn as an impulse-murderess grandma.

yes, basic instinct is derivative; the san francisco setting, the score, and catherine's interrogation-scene getup are straight out of vertigo, as has been belabored to death. but this girl is more diabolical in her sleep than kim novak on her worst day. the movie is beautifully shot throughout...you can think of it as a vertigo remix with soft-core porn, slasher violence and drugs thrown in for kicks.

the accompanying icepick-shaped pen writes in blood-red ink. tasteless.

Rating:
Summary: No edits and Camille Paglia! This is the oNE!
Review: Forget the rated version of BASIC INSTINCT. It's white-washed and missing graphic scenes of sex and violence that make the movie what it is. Sharon Stone plays the devil ... yes, Paul Verhoven admits that she is the the devil incarnate as a blonde ice-pick weilding bisexual psychotic who tempts and outsmarts every single person in the cast! Priceless here in DVD land is Camille Paglia's radical feminist take on the movie. She's fast and funny describing BASIC INSTINCT as a movie where women take back their sexual power! Come inside and check out the steamiest erotic thriller ever! Political correctness means it could never be made today. Trashy, yes! But also very well done and stylish. Sharon Stone became a star, and Michael Douglas never quite recovered. See why!

Rating:
Summary: Performance of a lifetime!
Review: This movie is indeed now a cult classics. Sharon Stone stole the show. The way she looks, stirs and gazes, the confidence she exludes while talking to her victims totally spellbinds the viewer. This is one of the best thrillers of the century. Nice work sharon!!

Rating:
Summary: Basic in-STINK
Review: Imagine someone telling a dead baby joke as unappealing as the idea is. But also imagine this someone trying to spice up the joke by adding 5 syllable words, Shakespearean quotes, and French expressions like "coup de grace" or "piece de resistance". Now I ask you, is this erudite relating of a dead baby joke still a dead baby joke. Yes, it is. Using this frame of mind, let us apply it to any of those Cinemax Friday After Dark movies. You know, those movies with the low budgets and a whole slew of people with great bodies who can't act their out a wet paper bag. Let us now take one of these FAD films, budget it with tens of millions of dollars, and cast it with the famous Michael Douglas and the up-and-coming Sharon Stone. Did we make a better FAD film? No, but we sure did purdy it up like we did the dead baby joke.

Basic Instinct is a measley effort to make something that has no inherent class classy. It's like that old saying about how you can't polish a ... well you know. Douglas is here playing a "cop on the edge", a role he did way three years earlier in the underrated Black Rain (I love the Ray Charles karaoke scene myself, but back to the point). And you have Sharon Stone as a [appealing] writer whose books mirror the murders that are being committed. As you can already see, it won't be long before these two hook up and make the bedsprings sing in 4/4 time.

So let me ask you one more question, friends. What is Basic Instinct's claim of fame? Is it the Oscar-calibre performances of its stars? Is it the crisp sharp direction that echoes Kurosawa and Fellini? Is it the inventive high concept plot that makes A Clockwork Orange seem like Friday the 13th part 68 - Jason vs. Lumbago? No, incorrect, and el wrongiente. It's the interrogation scene where Stone forgot to bring her undergarments. It's a pretty sad commentary of society when such a scene is held in high regard. I almost forgot about Douglas' completely unprovoked mooning of the audience. Don't tell anyone, but the 3rd Infantry found thousands of copies of the latter scene in one of Saddam's WMD bunkers. What was he going to use it for?

This cinematic aberration was made by none other than Paul Verhoeven (who directed great films like Robocop and Starship Troopers {which I rather enjoyed thank you}) and the atrociously overpaid, overrated and under-useful Joe Eszterhas. The relationship between Verhoeven and Eszterhas fell apart after their infamous next collaboration Showgirls. Verhoeven may still have a few good films left in him, but someone needs to tell Eszterhas that his local Wal-mart needs more cart pushers.

Rating:
Summary: Basic Instinct: A thriller that pushes the limits
Review: As a child, future director Paul Verhoven's playground was the recently bombed out homes of his neighbors. The absurd violence in the world seems to be reflected in all his movies. I have been involved with four Verhoven films while on the Rob Bottin effects crew. Verhoven made a name for himself directing the edgy and funny "Robocop" originally receiving an X-Rating for the violence in his director's cut. Total Recall and Starship Troopers are other wild examples of his romance with ultra violence. He has always made films that push limits of acceptable social boundaries. Before he directed Showgirls he tested the public's tolerance for a sex with buckets of blood with his thriller Basic Instinct.
Basic Instinct is a Hitchcock style murder thriller featuring Sharon Stone who is "dressed to kill" as famous author Catherine Trammel (a dead ringer for Kim Novak in Vertigo) A violent icepick murder seems to have been taken right out of her recent novel. Arrogant and cool, she actually invites the police investigators to wonder if she did it in the now legendary interogation scene where she crosses her legs and shoots Detective Curran (Michael Douglas) an eyeful of her unpantied intimate territory. Curran is investigates her a little too closely and compromises his integrity by getting ensnared in her sexual web. Did she do it or is it the copycat work of a crazed fan? Even intimately close to the suspect Detective Curran doesn't really know for sure.
Even though this is the unrated director's cut you won't find some of the most extremely gory footage. Stone shot a scene in the nude where she straddled a realistic torso of a victim repeatedly plunging the icepick into the chest and face. Splattered with fake blood and feeling in her arm the sensation of the pick piercing this rubbery body, the illusion was all too real. Sharon became nauseous and had to leave the set. Also missing Gus (George Dzunza) takes a nasty icepick in the cheek. Basic Instinct is a stylish and dark film that can be frustrating and uncomfortable as it never quite fully allows you to know all its secrets. But it is intriguing none-the-less.
Personally I was always uneasy with the boundaries Verhoven likes to push but this is a better film than expected. Verhoven has had several unfulfilled dreams to push even harder but so far has been thwarted. For example "Crusade" Another Arnold movie quashed in negotiations "Crusades" had a scene where Scharzenneger is found with his head sticking out of the backside of a donkey's rear end. Verhoven often joked with Rob Bottin about making a film designed to enrage his critics called Jesus 2000. Rob thinks he would have seriously done it if he was given the money.
Overall if you are a fan of Basic Instinct there is a lot for you on this disc. Two commentaries. One by Verhoven and the other by a feminist author as well as deleted scenes and some behind the scenes featurettes. The novelty plastic case with plastic ice pick was probably a bad idea as the hinges break very easily. Be careful when opening or you will be pretty ticked off.

Rating:
Summary: The Classic Erotic Thriller On DVD
Review: 1992's "Basic Instinct" followed what was becoming a trend in "erotic thriller" films. Earlier in 1987, Michael Douglas portrayed the subject of Glen Close's obscession in "Fatal Attraction" and he would again be the victim of a sexual assault by Demi Moore in 1994's "Disclosure". Basic Instinct is a well written movie with great performances by the lead actors. It is one of those gripping films full of suspense and very steamy sex scenes. The film follows the career of a San Francisco police detective (Michael Douglas) who investigates a murder. Sharon Stone plays the suspect, a wild and beautiful writer of murder mysteries and thrillers. It is quite evident by Sharon Stone's performance that she is herself the murderess and responsible for the subsequent murders in the film. Sharon Stone sizzles the screen with the famous Interrogation Scene and later her highly sexual scenes with Michael Douglas. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Sharon's character has a dark and dangerous end. Everything she writes about in her books begin to come true - her parents she might have killed herself, her friends and lovers are each murdered. Furthermore, the sensationalistic character is enhanced by making her a bisexual woman. She lures Michael Douglas into her seductive web and before you know it, Michael Douglas is no longer investigating the serial killer..becuse we assume at this point he is romantically involved with the murderess herself, though he does not know it. The closing scene shows an ice-pick (the weapon of choice by the killer) underneath Sharon Stone's bed. A film full of suspense, plenty of frightening moments and a seductive psychopath. Five stars.

Rating:
Summary: Sex, sex, sex, sex and more sex. Nothing more, nothing less.
Review: It's hilarious how worked up people got when this movie came out. The PC crowd decried the fact that a lesbian was the killer and, therefore, must have been the villan. The right wing crowd then immediately accused the PC crowd of being too hysterical about the alleged prejudice against homosexuals. Basic Instinct, they contended, was bad because it was a dirty movie. The producers, of course, loved all this publicity because EVERYONE went running to see the move and, in the words of Liberace, cried all the way to the bank. Telling audiences to not see a film because of homosexual activity and graphic sex scenes is like trying to scare ants away from a picnic by pouring sugar on the ground.

First of all, Sharon Stone's Catherine Trammell who is the killer lesbian (actually bisexual) in question, IS THE MOST SYMPATHETIC character in the whole film! EVERYONE is a slimebag! From Michael Douglas' hot tempered, tourist killing, chain smoking, cocaine snorting, oversexed police detective to Jeanne Tripplehorn's neurotic, kinky police psychiastrist who is more messed up than any of her patients to the rest of the morally compromised sleazes who pass for cops who laugh at murder victims and have the compassion and sensitivity of storm troopers, EVERY single character in this movie is a cesspool of a person! The way I see it, Sharon Stone is the most sympathetic person in the entire film -- at least she makes no bones about being sleazy. If you take the position that lesbians should be offended by their negative portrayal in Basic Instinct, then you could say the same for psychiatrists, cops (especially members of the SFPD), mystery writers, drug addicts, San Franciscans, smokers, country/western fans, chilli eaters, Mustang drivers and basically all human beings in general.

Of course, the right wing is just as clueless when it comes to Basic Instinct. I went to see Basic Instinct BECAUSE of all the sex in the movie! Anyone who tells you that they saw Basic Instinct for any reason other than to see loads of nudity and sex is so full of it, they should be slapped! I went to see Sharon Stone's nether regions in the police interrogation scene. I went to see the sex scene between Douglas and Stone that seems to go on for about half the movie (although I had to wait until the home video release to see ALL of the sex scene -- what a rip-off!). I went to see Sharon Stone display the wares she only hinted at having in Total Recall. I WANTED TO SEE SEX AND NUDITY AND, BY GOD, THAT'S WHY I WENT TO SEE BASIC INSTINCT!!! So many hypocritical prudes tsk tsk at all of the sex in movies today. Get a clue! This movie is like a huge bug zapper: drawing us in with loads of sex and nudity even though we're going to get zapped when we realize what a piece of sleazy trash we're watching (Joe Ezsterhaus must read tons of pornography in order to form his views of women).

But please don't get me wrong, this is INSPIRED sleaze that I am wholeheartedly recommending you at least rent, if not purchase. It may be sleaze, but it's really, really enjoyable sleaze which will have you "standing at attention" for a long, long time afterward (even after you see not one, but two, gratuitous shots of Michael Douglas' butt). And for those of you who have moral objections to Basic Instinct, please, go out and get a life!

Rating:
Summary: A benchmark for modern thrillers, Verhoeven's absolute best
Review: Paul Verhoeven and Joe Eszterhas open their film with the ultimate oxymoron of love and death: the moment of orgasm coincides with the moment of greatest agony and death. Never before has a film character been killed in the throes of orgasm. Never before has such a wildly creative and controversial opening polarized audience opinion from scene one. Never before has orgasm on film achieved such a scary, cynical, darkly humorous edge with each counter-penetration of the murder weapon. The very concept of doing away with a victim in this way in the first minutes of the film demonstrates the creators' genius -- and their "poor" taste.

But this is only the beginning of a delightfully ironic, even amusing, dance between life and death that forms the twists and turns of Basic Instinct.

Aside from analyzing a film from the infantile and simple-minded level of sex and violence, a great film achieves emotional intensity also with it's carefully photographed and edited "looks", scenes in which the characters glance at each other in fits of non-verbal communication - and Basic Instinct scores 200 percent in this department. Achieved by Verhoeven, cinematographer Jan De Bont, and the cast itself, the "looks" achieve a particularly fine edge when Curran and Gus first encounter Roxy in the "his and hers Picassos" scene in the foyer, and then later Verhoeven and cast up the ante again in the oceanside scene on the deck in which Curran, Gus, and Trammell first encounter each other. The cutting and film score in this area are so beautiful it hurts. This is surely Jerry Goldsmith's finest score, whose power throughout the production is inestimable.

Non-verbal looks are key, and looks mixed with Joe Eszterhas' now-famous dialogue make Basic Instinct a film so coherent and so vital, so crackling with delicious character friction, that Basic Instinct is absolutely perfect - at least up until the violent sex scene between Curran and his psychotherapist, which I thought was unnecessary, but which adds a needed touch of lunacy to Curran's and Garner's relationship. The fact that this relationship is openly discussed in the department provides the final touch of contradiction and astringency.

A great film stimulates all parts of the mind simultaneously, from the most intellectual to the most primal, and Basic Instinct covers the entire spectrum, providing doses of gore, emotionally satisfying character interaction, and intellectually stimulating plot.

Basic Instinct is chock full of classic and memorable scenes, but most of the sex and violence scenes are definitely off the list. Verhoeven has to do it tastefully and artfully, of course. No missteps here. But who cares how well they can make love or stab each other? It's the stuff in between the violence, the fantastic interactions and pithy dialogue of one of the best film casts ever assembled, that makes Basic Instinct so great. Particularly notable and satisfying is the scene with Dr. Lamott, Dr. Garner and the entire police staff, which hones in on the ambiguity and insanity of the film's basic themes, with brilliant support again from Goldsmith's underscore.

Basic Instinct is the peak of Michael Douglas' career - and Sharon Stone's, for that matter. Aside from Douglas' artfully chiseled expressions, let's not forget that fabulous voice. What a guy.

Note a particularly underrated performance by Denis Arndt as Lieutenant Walker, Curran's immediate supervisor, who provides a deliciously acrid and sardonic non-supportiveness for Curran's ongoing investigation.

If characters like Curran and Walker irritate, then Stone as Trammell is the ultimate lubricant, nothing sticks to her, she can easily wriggle out of any situation. Basic Instinct dares to portray an invincible murderer with no guilt, no weaknesses.

In it's craft alone, Basic Instinct goes far beyond the average thriller to become the ultimate modern whodunit against which all others must be measured. This film will far outlast it's critics - Verhoeven's best film by far.

Rating:
Summary: Noir Thriller By Verhoeven
Review: I realized that I had in fact not actually seen this film when I watched it early last night. I think I must have just seen scenes when I was younger and assumed I had seen the whole thing. There a great deal of gratuitous sex in this film, but there is also a quite a good deal of suspense and old school tension that used to be found in the noir thrillers of the 30's and 40's. I loved Sharon Stone in this. I can now see why she became a star so quickly. Michael Douglas is always good so his brilliant performance wasn't a surprise to me. But the real standout for me was actually Jeanne Tripplehorn. She was incredible. Paul Verhoeven is one of my favorite filmmakers at the moment. He has made so versatile films everything from medieval (i.e. Flesh and Blood) to science fiction (i.e. Starship Troopers, Robocop and Total Recall), sexual thrillers (The 4th Man, Basic Instinct and Showgirls), horror films (i.e. Hollow Man), and war films (i.e. Soldier of Orange). He is a brilliant filmmaker who deserves much more attention.

Rating:
Summary: A great sexual thriller
Review: Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone star in this erotic thriller. Their chemistry is perfect for "Basic Instinct". The writers wonderfully blend erotica and murder mystery, giving the audience more eyepleasing scenes. Director Paul Verhoeven proves his fearlessness as the passionate scenes deepen into territories that many would only dare. Some may sense the obvious connection to a book. Still, this is a movie worth watching. Those looking for extra sexy scenes should watch the unrated version. It offers the director's intended theme and interviews from Douglas and Stone. Those pleased with "Basic Instinct" should watch it again. That time, pay extra attention to every quote. It'll help better understand the long and deep chain of events.