Review by kpyatt

Alot of people will tell you that film noir is dead. That they don't - nay, can't - make it anymore because films are made in color. Well, film noir still exists today. There are films that contain the elements of noir. Film noir isn't just defined by black & white, despite the fact that it means "dark film". Plenty of noir has been done in color: "Jade", also by "Basic" screenwriter Joe Ezsterhas; "Palmetto", a brilliant, horribly-underrated film that is to me THE definition of modern noir; and this film, "Basic Instinct". With this, it of course contains the femme fatale of Catherine Tremell, played like a sly snake expertly by Sharon Stone. Michael Douglas is the cop who gets in too far and ends up risking himself and his life for the woman he falls in love with, despite the fact that she's within all plausiblity guilty of the crimes he's investigating. But he already knows it. Come on! He has to. That's part of what excites him about Catherine - her daring. And she knows it, too. So one could say that "Basic Instinct" is a great example of subtlety between characters and showing how they feel each other out, like cat and mouse, waiting for the other to crack first. Instead the two take that energy and use it for great sex. The sex scenes in this film are wonderfully shot and very, very necessary. People say that all nudity is gratuitous. Alot of nudity is; but some isn't. Some nudity is used expertly. Here it is, as it is in "Jade". In "Jade" the nudity is undeniably a part of the film's plot and is needed to heighten the sense of panic felt by certain characters in the story. Here, in "Basic", it's used to create the intoxicating feel of falling absolutely in lust and desire over a predator, a spider, if you will, such as Catherine Tremell. "Basic Instinct" is a script that has been studied and talked about in film classes, and I have a copy of it and hope to discuss it in my future screenwriting classes I'll be taking. It's a great, clever, wicked script. And so is the film.