Instinto Selvagem

Detective Nick Curran investigates a brutal and violent murder, his investigations lead him to the beautiful novelist Catherine Tremell, a writer of erotic novels, Curran quickly develops an infatuation for Tremell.

I always considered this to be a Hitchcock style film, but now that I'm working my way through his catalogue I'm not too sure, although it does put me in mind of the noir films from the 40's.

It's a super sexy thriller, and let's be honest, the infamous sex scenes have this film a lot more notoriety than it ultimately deserved, it's a good film, but in no way is it a classic.

It has a degree of suspense and tension, you are made to wait a long time to learn if she did or didn't, and the big reveal scene is worth the wait, and perhaps the film's best scene.

Douglas and Stone are both very good, and there's a definite chemistry between the pair, it is one very attractive cast, Stone is genuinely jaw dropping throughout.

It is hard to watch this movie without thinking of the many spoofs that followed, that infamous interview scene was sent up several times, and rightly so.

Considering it's now over thirty years old, I'd suggest it's held up rather well.

7/10.

Sure its dirty minded, and extremely violent, but underneath all of Paul Verhoevens trademark sleaze there is a great film noir thriller to be seen. The film has a sense of an old 40's or 50's film noir, but of course with the 90's boundaries in taste and graphic nudity. The story is quite involving and there are plenty of twists and turns and unresolved endings. Michael Douglas is good in his role and must have really enjoyed film shagging Jean Tripplehorn and Sharon Stone, while it is Stone who steals the show as the writer Catherine, whose books write about murders that are apparently being copied by a murdering female. Its very steamy but the cinematography and the score are all very good and the film is more clever than merely T&A. It is a film that has spawned many inferior clones, usually TV movies starring melon chested playboy queen Shannon Tweed. ****

There is so much here that is unresolved that it leaves an empty, unfulfilled feeling that the viewer has been suckered. Endless nude and sex scenes intrude on the mystery plot and in the end it is all for not much.

Infamous for its explicit exploitation of said sex and nudity and forever frustrating for that's pretty much all there is. The soft-porn aside it can be a somewhat sultry, trashy ride with enough intrigue to keep the interest but not enough to make it a totally engaging entertainment.

The biggest problem is the ambiguity about most of what unfolds. There are dangling plot elements and shallow, confusing side shows. In all, it is a murky, muddy, and thin piece of Pulp that has modern machinations and push the envelope displays of Crime Fiction laced with so much pomp that it's rendered impotent.

The Movie has enough sizzle to attract viewers but cannot justify all the indulgence and will most likely be an unsatisfactory guilty pleasure. It is quite an overrated Film whose appeal comes from the most lowbrow lexicons of entertainment. But hey, someone once said...there's one born every minute. That's a lot of ticket buyers.

Basic Instinct was an entry into the neo-noir genre of the 90's (The Last Seduction, Fatal Attraction etc ) that tried to update 40's/50's American film noir as well as bringing in elements of Hitchcock's Vertigo. On this level Basic Instinct is a brilliant conveyor of noir themes that portrays an unstable detective out of control in an intricate unfathomable plot with a femme fatale, Hollywood mansions, dark shadowy rooms, smart cynical dialogue and smoking. It is also flawed on this level with its unnatural characterisation. However, the artificiality of the plot, genre, characterisations and the look creates a distance between the viewer and the film. When you take this into account along with the constant references to watching in the film, outlined below, the film moves to a different level. It is no longer about whether Catherine Tramell is the killer but is more about the spectatorial process of watching a (Hollywood) film.

For example, Catherine Tramell(Sharon Stone) is a writer whose murder plots exactly follow the murders that occur in the film. Her coolness and openness about these killings gives her a sense of being in control of Nick Curran's(Michael Douglas) destiny. In this way, she is like cinema itself spinning a predetermined plot line that the audience represented by Douglas just follows.

Throughout the film, the detective seems resigned to his lack of control, totally in awe of Catherine Tramell ready to go along with her. This is similar to the way the audience submits itself inside the cinema to the control that the screen exerts. However just as we do, Curran attempts to predetermine the plot with his own expectations. He tells Tramell that he has his own idea how it will end - "The cop survives" - The final question of "What do we do now, Nick?" is met with "F*** like minxes, raise rug rats, live happily ever after." another idealistic expectation of the cinema audience. However the ambiguous final shot reminds us that Douglas/the audience may not get the ending he wants - only cinema decides whether that ice pick under the bed will be used.

Another parallel with the cinema experience is the way Nick Curran seems to identify with Tramell. At the start he is a recovered smoker and drinker and Tramell gets him to start again. Over the course of the film his attraction to Tramell's character makes him take on more and more of her traits - aggressive sexuality, risk taking, use of her dialogue and more and more leaps into fantasy. He is almost merging with her and this is reflected in his interrogation scene being shot identically to Tramell's earlier one. Again this development mirrors the way cinema audiences identify with the film narrative. The Hollywood ideal is that the viewer leaves his/her outside of the cinema in order to temporarily identify with the fantasy characters on screen.

Another main aspect of the cinema experience touched on here is the voyeuristic process of watching itself. Curran is constantly in a spectatorial position. It is most obvious where he watches Tramell through a window that looks like a cinema screen itself. Another scene where he is trying to find out about Tramell on a computer sees him reprimanded by a colleague for "jacking off to the screen". This likens Douglas to an audience member watching the film in a similarly voyeuristic way. This is the reason why Hitchcock is such a strong influence on this film - these are classic Hitchcockian themes.

My final comparison is the bi-directional aspect of cinema touched on in the film. The interrogation scene where Tramell manipulates the audience of detectives is the only time where Tramell has point of view, reminding us that cinema watches and manipulates us as well. Also the fact that throughout Tramell knows so much about Detective Curran's past is a similar device. Tramell uses what she knows about Curran to make her murder work, just as Hollywood exploits what it knows about our desires of movies in order to sell us their product. (And those desires may have been partly contrived by Hollywood).

The female murderers (who look like old film stars) that Tramell hangs around with represent other archetypal Hollywood stories - maybe these could have been other films that Nick Curran watched before when he took up smoking before.

Is it a coincidence that the words "cinema theatre" can be found in the name Catherine Tramell and the word "audience" can be found in "Detective Nick Curran" ?

Probably.

For fans of Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi actioners such as ROBOCOP and TOTAL RECALL, this is the same but not the same. For instead of having explicit violence to carry things along, Verhoeven goes along with explicit sex for the thrills here (a formula he repeated later in his flop SHOWGIRLS before going back to the violence with STARSHIP TROOPERS). Of course with a film like this there was a big fuss when it was first released and it achieved a certain notoriety for the infamous leg-crossing scene. Sadly when most people mention this they tend to forget that aside from the sex there is also a pretty good thriller plot to enjoy.

The makers of this film tried to give it a film-noir style, perhaps even going for a Hitchcockian influence. What they did do is succeed in making a powerful, intense whodunit which keeps you guessing as to the identity of the murderess right up until the end - and even then, a final twists means that it's all still ambiguous. As well as all the sex that's going on, Verhoeven still finds the opportunity to put in some of his trademark graphic violence in the shape of a pair of icepick murders which see blood flying everywhere in an extremely grisly fashion.

Michael Douglas is well-suited for the role of the cop on the edge, with slicked-back hair to make him look younger. I know that his nudity in this film is a basis for a lot of people to make fun of him, but when I think of other male actors around at the time I can't really imagine anybody else in the role. While Douglas has the fairly straight and unexciting role, Sharon Stone on the other hand is a revelation: extruding an icy cold air and totally in control of herself and just about everybody else, her seductive siren instantly made Stone a star - and put her into the mainstream eye, away from the bit parts she had previously had in the likes of NICO: ABOVE THE LAW. It's safe to say that this film contains Stone's best performance and that she's never lived up to it since, except maybe in her believable portrayal of a drug addicted wife in Scorcese's CASINO.

In support, George Dzundza is good as a comic relief cop while Jeanne Tripplehorn also gives an excellent performance as Douglas' psychiatrist. BASIC INSTINCT is well worth a watch, and not just because of the obvious reasons. Fans of thrillers should check it out.