Year:
1992
Studio:
TriStar Pictures/Carolco Pictures
Movie:
4/5
DVD:
2/5
Movie
I finally watched "Basic Instinct" and it is a good movie. Very much
done in a film noire style, it's a sexy thriller done to the standards
of the time. That's why you have sexy lesbians, lots of nudity, and
some rather steamy sex scenes. I started out knowing that Catherine did
it but by the end of the movie, I wasn't so sure.
A former rock musician has been brutally murdered with an ice pick.
Homicide Detectives Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) and Gus Moran (George
Dzundra) are on the case. Their top suspect is the "girlfriend",
Catherine Trammell (Sharon Stone), who is a writer with a PhD in
Psychology and just happened to have written a novel that describes the
same type of murder.
Nick is going through his own problems. A fatal shooting incident
involving some tourists and a rocky relationship with the department
psychiatrist, Dr. Beth Garner (Jeanne Tripplehorn), mark a rather angry
man. Catherine doesn't help either as she slowly plays psych games and
manipulates him. Can Nick prove Catherine is the killer, or is he going
to fall in love with the wrong woman?
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Actors
Sharon Stone's breakout role (people keep saying "Total Recall" but she
was only in it for like 10 minutes), she comes off as beautiful, sexy,
intelligent, and totally dangerous. Lots of nudity on her part,
including the infamous interrogation scene, and great looking passion
in the sex scenes. Michael Douglas keeps pace playing a role
reminiscent of an angry version of his Steve Keller role in "Streets of
San Francisco". Jeanne Tripplehorn looked awful with a blonde wig on.
DVD
There is a 25-minute Making of featurette, which spends the last 10
minutes on the backlash from the gay and lesbian community. A 5-minute
segment showing what was changed for the television version illustrates
how off the substitute voices can be. Three storyboard scenes, a photo
gallery, theatrical trailer and television commercial are included.
The commentary by "Feminist Critic" Camille Paglia was awful. She's a
professor at some Philadelphia school and it was like listening to a
lecture. She describes the scenes as they are happening ("here we see a
wide shot of HIghway 1 as the two detectives drive to Catherine's beach
house"). And then she plays up that feminist angle comparing how
everything is a man versus woman issue. After 15 minutes I couldn't
listen to it anymore.
Recommendations
"Basic Instinct" is viewed by some as a classic Thriller in the mold of
"Fatal Attraction". I'm not too sure if I'd go that far, but it is a
sexy and interesting movie. This version of the DVD is not worth it,
though there is another version with commentary by Director Paul
Verhoeven. I've listened to his commentaries and though he's not that
good, he's still much better than Camille Paglia. |