Basic Instinct (1992) – 3/5

Sometimes a bit too basic indeed, but overall still worth seeing

„Basic Instinct“ is an English-language live action film that is a co-production between the United States of America and France and I kinda wonder where the French element comes from here. Anyway, it is a pretty long film as it runs for almost 130 minutes, which means that it also makes it past the two-hour mark if we ignore the credits for a moment. The film’s title is almost self-explanatory. I am sure that almost all movie-goers have heard it, even if they were born after the creation of this film. It is a bit of a cult classics, even if the reception is not always in favor of the outcome here. The director is Paul Verhoeven and this is a definite contender if somebody asks the question what is the most known work from the two-time BAFTA nominee. This also has to do with the film’s success at awards ceremonies. The movie was nominated for two Oscars, one in the editing category and the second for its music and the latter was one of the final nominations for Jerry Goldsmith and if you look at all the Oscar nominations he has, then he can surely be called an icon without hesitation. It is kinda surprising he won only once. With his nomination here, he probably also did not have much of a chance. As for the acting, female lead performer Sharon Stone scored a Golden Globe nomination, but came short at the Oscars and did not get in there as well. Oh well, she still is an Oscar nominee and was maybe not too far away from winning for another film as she did win the Golden Globe for her portrayal there, so it seems the Globes always liked her a bit more compared to the Academy Awards. Anyway, back to this film. It is one of those movies that got in at the Oscars as well as the Razzies, admittedly not the same people. Jeanne Tripplehorn was apparently considered among the film’s weaknesses and yeah she was not great, but also not bad I guess. A Razzie nomination is a but exaggerated for sure. She was pretty attractive though. Like all the women in this film. Stone for sure as well.

Special mention to Leilani Sarelle whose screen time was limited sadly and I would have liked to see more from her, especially after her great introduction when she is heading down the stairs there. I thought it was Stone first. She was also a bit on the iconic side. In the rest of the film, her character is reduced to being a jealous caricature who eventually dies due to her own stupidity. They could have done a lot more with this character. The lesbian kissing moments were maybe controversial in the 1990s still, but eventually they were just really shallow and did not add any positive I would say. Speaking of controversy, the one thing almost everybody who has seen this film thinks of immediately when hearing the title is Stone (or her character) moving her legs in the interrogation chamber with all the guys looking her and we do get to see her genitalia. Or do we? Is it a prop or real? Nobody can ever say for sure. Everybody remembers this moment though. The year was 1992, so this film is also over 30 years old now. Michael Douglas, an Oscar winner before that already of course, is almost 80 now and same is true for George Dzundza. As a fan of the Law & Order franchise, I was happy to see him here and this was definitely no coincidence as was on the show in 1990 and 1991 and this film is from the year after, to cop roles were definitely his thing back then. Nice to see he is still alive in 2023, even if he has not acted in a decade. Both him and Douglas may very well have crossed the age of 80 if you read this review of mine a little later. As for Douglas, this was almost the first time where it felt incredibly obvious to me that he is related to Kirk Douglas. Striking resemblance. With his father’s background and some dark stories there, however, it was almost a bit painful to see Michael Douglas play an alpha male cop character here, but I guess this is still what male leads looked like in the 1990s. Early 1990s especially. There was one scene in which he had sex with Tripplehorn’s character and it gets pretty violent and she says no on a few occasions, not because she does not want it, but because she does not want it like this, so they would have had a hard time to get away with this film had it been made in the now. But then, it really would have looked very different anyway I am sure. And maybe this is the/one reason why many people/critics today do not like it a lot.

I would say it was an okay watch, but dramatically I had a hard time to take it seriously here and there. It felt more on guilty pleasure territory for me. But it definitely wasn’t awful If we look at the writer here, Joe Eszterhas, he does not have the brightest body of work the majority of projects he worked on received negative receptions. This may explain why only on imdb this film has a somewhat solid rating of 7/10 at this point and everywhere else almost, it is considerably lower. This is definitely the film that he is most remembered for. If we go back to the cast, I thought there was some serious foreshadowing with Dzundza’s character when he talks about his pension, his retirement etc. That he would die soon. I kinda expected him to die immediately after when he drives off in his car, but it took a little longer then with this final escalation in the building when he steps out of the elevator. I still had no clue why Douglas‘ character knew what was going on there and rushed to save him, but he was too late. The ending then is definitely not obvious. All the blame now moves over too Tripplehorn’s character and she is the one who, after her death, is connected to all the crimes that happened, even one from many years back in the past. Stone’s character is declared innocent, but the final shot with the look under her bed and the ice pick underneath suggest that she is at least partially guilty. Did she get away with (multiple) murder? We cannot say for sure, but the scene in which she and the main character have sex just like there was sex between two characters at the beginning and the aforementioned scene is basically a direct copy of this implies that it could have been her all along. This is also my theory, but who knows.

Towards the end, it is a bit of a back and forth between all the female characters here who did it and we cannot say for sure. Maybe you can say from the looks of the breasts and the body shape in the first scene who you see there? I couldn’t. But I thought that watching the police work was funny at times, especially some of the lines we heard there. Or in general the dialogues writing was among the film’s biggest strength. There was also one comment from Dzundza’s character directed to Douglas‘ character where he says something along the lines that having sex with Stone’s character clouded his judgment or so. It had to do with her genitalia again. That was hilarious. Great line! So yeah, you see I like Dzundza. Sorry. As for the film itself, it became such a trademark film for Stone that she agreed to reappear in a sequel several years later. That one apparently went all kinds of wrong though and scored big at the Razzies. There Stone herself also got her fair share in contrast to this first film here where she was considered the film’s best performance. Of course, the exposure she had here also helped her awards ambitions. I am not just talking about the genitalia shot, but she is also topless in here a lot for example and in general there are many scenes of men and women being depicted in erotic situations. That is why it is considered the epitome of an erotic thriller by many. Story-wise, there were weaknesses nonetheless. For example, the movie never really succeeded for me with the story line about her book(s) and how her character is based on the male protagonist here. Or also what she wrote in the past.

The idea of him seeing these newspaper articles there on the table that were about his own past and this her knowing her would come were a good enough inclusion I would say. What followed afterwards, namely him walking a few steps so he could see her naked from behind when she said she is going to undress was again something that people today are maybe not too fond of. Talk about police overstepping their boundaries. As if he did not have enough trouble already, also with the shooting of the tourists that happened back then. I guess this was where he got the nickname „shooter“? Not exactly the film’s best inclusion either. There are two supporting characters in here where I am undecided still if I liked their inclusions. One was Hazel Dobkins played by Oscar winner Dorothy Malone and the other was Lt. Nilsen played by Daniel von Bargen. Sadly, both actors are not alive anymore, but at least the female from the duo reached a pretty high age. The woman was one that the female protagonist would constantly hang out with to get a insight into the head of a murderer and the man was in a way Douglas‘ character’s main rival at the police station. Turns out though that eventually he was a better cop than we thought and this may also have cost him his life. His death, however, was very bizarre or what happened afterwards was very bizarre. I mean I understand that they had to take the main character’s gun and that the scientists found that it was not the gun that killed Nilsen, but there was nothing about the investigation afterwards and this just made no sense and is not what it is like when a cop is shot in the head. There would be huge uproar instead in the police force and we see nothing about that. Strange inclusion and definitely not the film’s brightest hour, so yeah there are indeed some flaws with this film and they are not just small ones. The explanation in the end how they find all this incriminating evidence in Tripplehorn’s character’s home after her death feels also a bit like an easy way out. Too easy I would say. But enough of this now. I still give the film a thumbs-up all in all. Go see it. Once is enough though.