With Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction about to hit the cinemas I thought it an apt time to discuss Basic Instinct and to look in depth at the film and what it gave us.
Paul Verhoeven a legend in the Netherlands had become a worldwide legend after two highly successful Hollywood blockbusters. First he bought us Robocop, which is a movie that looks as good now as it did nearly 20 years ago. For his second US movie he gave us Total Recall, a bit of futuristic action mumbo jumbo. In 1990 Straight of the back of Total Recall Verhoeven decided that his next most adventurous journey would be a stylish cop thriller, his aim was to create something that would look good now and in 40 years time, it took two years to complete I personally think he succeeded.
A rock star is found dead in his California mansion, Detective Nick Curran is assigned to investigate the case. He immediately realises that this is no cut and dry murder case and takes no time laying out the complexities of it. No stranger to a complex life Nick has his own little issues to deal with; a mystery surrounds him about a death, drug abuse, chain smoking, and alcohol. The police quickly bring in Catherine Trammell, a murder mystery novelist and on off lover of the murdered rocker. More incriminating is the fact that the recently departed rocker just happens to have been murdered the same way as a victim in Catherine's most recent novel. To add a little more fuel to this fire Catherine treats Nick like she knows him, they play a strange cat and mouse game during the initial interview with her. And when she brings up drug addiction and knows of Nick's
involvement with drugs this cements Nick's colleagues thoughts that there is a connection between the two.
Pleading no knowledge of Catherine, Nick visits his psychiatrist, Beth Garner. Nick has rather inappropriately entered into a sexual relationship with Beth. And a strange relationship it is too, while she goes out of her way to love him, he does his best to abuse and humiliate her. When one night an argument about Nick's past erupts, bought to light by his superior officer Nick violently lashes out. Why should he have his personal life broadcast in a public place? Beth hurries Nick home where he again treats her in a most despicable manner.
When the superior officer Nick argued with turns up dead, the investigation quickly moves from Catherine to Nick. The only way for Nick to get out of this situation is to get close to Catherine and see what she can teach him. The most deadly game has begun.
For me with the exception of Disclosure this has to be Michael Douglas's finest hour. Lots of people knock Basic Instinct, some call it cheap and tacky, and others state it's made in a very B movie style. But I have to argue that this is not the case. The production values of the film are some of the best I have ever seen, if you had no background knowledge of when the film was made it could have been made anytime since the mid eighties to this very day. The actors wardrobe is very cleverly designed, in one scene in a Nightclub Douglas is seen sporting an outfit that only now seems to have come into a popular fashion. None of the cast are ever seen in anything tell tale of the time. The police headquarters are the most stylish I have seen in a movie. And even the cars are cleverly picked to hide the date element. In one scene up the side of hill, they overtake 30 or 40 cars, each one specifically picked out to neutralise the age.
The actor's performances were great, Douglas was known and respected. Sharon Stone was little known, a history of B movies behind her, but so pleased with her performance in Total Recall Verhoeven just had to put her in the principle role. Despite the fact that Douglas clearly looks older than Stone the electricity between them is apparent from the first scene. They bump and grind along playing games with each others hearts and emotions. Beth's character played by the then unknown Jeanne Tripplehorn, a name you'll never forget in a hurry entered the big screen in triumph. From her first scene she was down trodden and continued to be for the first 30 minutes of the film, after which she just disappears off the radar.
I think the reason that Basic Instinct received such a savaging is clear, in a time that Hollywood was trying to step away from explicit sex and sexual violence Basic Instinct hits it head on. If you watch the film carefully you never once are given the impression that anyone involved actually enjoys sex. Sex is met with pain, and violence on every level. One scene in which Sharon Stone allegedly flashes the camera is by far the most talked about, despite the fact that in actual fact it's possibly the scene you see the least in. A scene in which Douglas's character pretty much rapes Tripplehorn is far more explicit. To this day I can't see what the fuss with Stone flashing was all about. Lay the sex out with other films prior to Basic Instinct 9 1/2 weeks, Crimes of Passion, Betty Blue, the accused, and Basic instinct offers the viewer nothing more than they have seen before.
Despite the savaging Basic Instinct received fantastic Box Office and sales on video. While at the cinema the movie drifted in and out of the top ten on numerous occasions, and was the first non child audience movie to go to number one in the UK twice a month apart. Indeed in the summer of 1992 you could not escape Basic Instinct fever. And the following year the video was stuck at number one in the Rental and sales charts for weeks on end, even when Basic Instinct was screened on Sky Television subscriptions at that time increased more than they ever had. In 2003 that sales success was replicated when Basic Instinct hit DVD.
Now onto the DVD
The DVD is chock a block filled with special features, first to mention is the fantastic audio descriptive service. This service turns the film almost into a talking book for the blind, describing the scenes in great detail, few DVD's offer this service and I feel this to be a shame.
Then you have a nice new cleaned up print of the movie, the change marks advising projectionists to change reels have been removed, as was a dead fly in the top of some scenes. Scenes in which Cameras and crewmembers were seen have been digitally removed making this the most perfect print of a film in some time.
An interesting but quite difficult to understand audio commentary is featured with Paul Verhoeven and cinematographer Jan De Bont. And a second audio commentary by Camille Paglia who is totally against sex on screen and anything that she does not like that involves women; regarding herself as a feminist, personally I think she just has a mass hate of the male race.
Blonde Poison is a great documentary about the making of the movie, the problems with time constraints, budgets and adding the shocks are all covered.
A documentary about censorship and Basic Instinct, this shows the vast amount of editing that needed to be done to allow Basic Instinct to be seen on television. And to be allowed cinema screenings in some countries.
The audition reels for both Jeanne Tripplehorn and Sharon Stone.
A variety of Easter Eggs (hidden special features)
Some trailers, photo galleries and storyboard processes are also included to pad out the special features.
Additional languages available are German and Spanish, and subtitles are available in English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Portuguese and Dutch.
You can purchase Basic instinct for £5.99 from www.play.com
Pictures of Basic Instinct (DVD)
Sharon Stone
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 2002 - Thriller - Director: Bharat Nalluri, Rob Bailey, Andy Wilson - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Matthew MacFadyen, Keeley Hawes, David Oyelowo, Peter Firth, Jenny Agutter, Lisa Faulkner
Thriller - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Timothy West, Neil Morrissey, Tara Fitzgerald, Annette Crosbie, Pauline Quirke, Rob Brydon, Denise Van Outen, John Thomson, Kevin Whately, David Suchet
Production Year: 2002 - Thriller - Director: K.C. Bascombe - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Jesse James, Rachel Skarsten, Charles Powell, Linda Purl, Kevin Zegars
Exceptional review there man!!! I just saw this film for the first time in full...quite stylish and highly entertaining indeed...Stone was great....however, I think Douglas "finest hour" would be in his next film...FALLING DOWN, he was just brilliant. Chris :)))
n13roy 22.02.2006 11:49
Really well written and informative review indeed, I thought this was a very clever film for its time, wonder what the new one will be like, I know its set in London, and that Sharon Stone is in it again..........Roy...
Feb 13th, 2006
exceptional by (7%):
very helpful by (92%):
helpful by (1%):
