At the time, Basic Instinct was considered shocking and new. In retrospect, in a world where much harder pornography is so commonplace, it's not got much sex appeal going for it. What I do like is the OTT game of cat and mouse between Stone and Douglas.
Catherine Tramell is a writer of sleazy novels who lives out her pulp trash after she's written it. This would be fine if she wrote about saving the children or building churches but Tramell writes about sex, murder and betrayal. She's accused of murdering her Rock-star boyfriend by icepicking his head 86-times during a massive shagathon. She feels no guilt and no sadness and Detective Nick Curran regards her with utmost suspicion even though she passed a lie-detector test.
Determined to find the truth among Catherine Tramell's web of pork-pies, Curran falls into her world of sin and seduction. Already a bad cop well on the way to cleaning up his act, all of his nasty habits come flooding back to him. The drinking, the snorting, the smoking...all because of a blonde. I would be impervious to this.
In fact, Jeanne Triplehorn, who plays Curran's psychiatrist, is a billion times more sexy than Sharon Stone. Especially when she wears her glasses. But that's just my thing.
One can accuse Basic Instinct of being contrived, overly-complicated and over-plotted but they'd be missing the point. I do feel that the irony of gutter-level fiction becoming real within gutter-level fiction would have been more appropriate and perhaps louder if Basic Instinct were a book, but as a movie it makes its point despite the high level tawdriness that most audiences are going think is all the film has to offer.
Paul Verhoeven takes a Hitchcockian approach to the material as there are already a few connections to Vertigo. At one point in the film, Sharon Stone even dresses up in an outfit identical to Kim Novak (hairstyle and all). You can't help but notice the sleaze sometimes though. Like Michael Douglas walking around a nightclub in a horrible V-neck sweater or the 'infamous' leg-crossing scene with is only really notable for its unsubtlety.
There are also some parts of the film which kind of date it badly. The production design and fashion is sooo early 90s. It's not the kind of story that oozes class but the outdated look kinda distracts. But the one amazing thing Basic Instinct has going for it is Jerry Goldsmith's wonderfully haunting score. Truly one of his best in the latter part of his career.
Add it all up and Basic Instinct is wildly inconsistent in terms of quality but the sheer OTT nature of plot is enough to keep it afloat. And all these years later, when we have mostly become impervious to titillation, people still remember all the skanky publicity and the aroma of sleaze will never quite die away. See past all that and you'll find a clever thriller underneath.
Catherine Tramell is a writer of sleazy novels who lives out her pulp trash after she's written it. This would be fine if she wrote about saving the children or building churches but Tramell writes about sex, murder and betrayal. She's accused of murdering her Rock-star boyfriend by icepicking his head 86-times during a massive shagathon. She feels no guilt and no sadness and Detective Nick Curran regards her with utmost suspicion even though she passed a lie-detector test.
Determined to find the truth among Catherine Tramell's web of pork-pies, Curran falls into her world of sin and seduction. Already a bad cop well on the way to cleaning up his act, all of his nasty habits come flooding back to him. The drinking, the snorting, the smoking...all because of a blonde. I would be impervious to this.
In fact, Jeanne Triplehorn, who plays Curran's psychiatrist, is a billion times more sexy than Sharon Stone. Especially when she wears her glasses. But that's just my thing.
One can accuse Basic Instinct of being contrived, overly-complicated and over-plotted but they'd be missing the point. I do feel that the irony of gutter-level fiction becoming real within gutter-level fiction would have been more appropriate and perhaps louder if Basic Instinct were a book, but as a movie it makes its point despite the high level tawdriness that most audiences are going think is all the film has to offer.
Paul Verhoeven takes a Hitchcockian approach to the material as there are already a few connections to Vertigo. At one point in the film, Sharon Stone even dresses up in an outfit identical to Kim Novak (hairstyle and all). You can't help but notice the sleaze sometimes though. Like Michael Douglas walking around a nightclub in a horrible V-neck sweater or the 'infamous' leg-crossing scene with is only really notable for its unsubtlety.
There are also some parts of the film which kind of date it badly. The production design and fashion is sooo early 90s. It's not the kind of story that oozes class but the outdated look kinda distracts. But the one amazing thing Basic Instinct has going for it is Jerry Goldsmith's wonderfully haunting score. Truly one of his best in the latter part of his career.
Add it all up and Basic Instinct is wildly inconsistent in terms of quality but the sheer OTT nature of plot is enough to keep it afloat. And all these years later, when we have mostly become impervious to titillation, people still remember all the skanky publicity and the aroma of sleaze will never quite die away. See past all that and you'll find a clever thriller underneath.