Basic Instinct - Director's Cut (1992)

Apart from All the Rest -- Sharon Saves Movie......

Ho Hum. Another Michael Douglas film whereby the puzzle's the thing, and your quest to have them reveal the answer creates more confusion for your brain cells. Not to say this isn't entertaining.
Michael is a detective who has been excessive in his self destruction (booze and cigarettes) and the department is keeping an annoying prying eye on him. Investigating a murder, he comes across the not caring one bit out of the mainstream Sharon Stone. She lives life on the edge, and he becomes more deeply involved with her as he tries to figure out the murder.
Sharon is called in for questioning, and it is there she exerts her full power and control over the men questioning her. I am surprised the department didn't have drool cups available. Anyway, sex and sin and alternate lifestyles and blond wigs figure into this whole mess. In the end, the cat and mouse game still doesn't get resolved because you are kept wondering who caught who?
The movie tries to give you intrigue, but doesn't always hit the mark. The camera, though, does hit the mark when Sharon is on screen, and she saves the movie on her own, without the wooden Michael Douglas and his phoned in performance. For curiosity seekers only. June 18, 2008

One of my all time favorites.

Amazing movie from start to finish.
It starts with a bang (literally) and ends with one, once again literally.
My pathetic humor aside, excellent movie, Great acting, great story, great twists and turns. I remember the public outrage when this came out.
How funny, it seems almost tame by todays standards, or lack there of.
My only gripe.
Couldn't they have found a better leading man than Douglas?
Who wants to look at his saggy old man body?
That minor conplaint aside, one of the best thrillers Hollyweird has ever put out.
A must see!!! June 13, 2008

The directors cut Generates Heat!

For the few extra minutes of footage, and the bonus features (to see Stone's real audition is worth it alone, it had to be her) this is worth it. The movie is still engaging after all these years, it's a mighty fine erotic thriller. The Directors Cut generates even more heat! Whew... May 10, 2008

One of my favorites growing up

Paul Verhoeven has created a masterwork from Joe Eszterhas' controversial script. Several sex scenes become a leitmotif, as the participants appear to pummel, rather than love, one another with their nether parts. But the most rugged and the most erotic scene occurs between Detective Nick Curran, Michael Douglas, and his colleague, Beth Garner, portrayed by Jeanne Tripplehorn. He throws her against a wall and then against the back of a chesterfield. That is only the foreplay. In this film sex is violence, and that is Verhoeven's theme.

But there is more. Sharon Stone as Catherine Tramell has a beautiful blonde form in that Beach Boy / California girl manner. She plays her 'flashing' scene in the police interrogation room with wit and a touch of class. Throughout the film she is arch, intelligent, electric. Her foil, Nick Curran, a troubled detective, realizes she might be a murderer, but finds her personality and her allure, irresistible. Douglas' performance is driven, masculine, affecting ... yet he would be well advised to keep his trousers on henceforth, for his sagging bottom is simply too comical.

There are several echoes of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (58). Both pictures have as a setting the picturesque San Francisco area. Jerry Goldsmith's music recalls Bernard Herrmann's symphonic score. The stairwell in Curran's apartment building resembles the vertiginous staircase of the Mission bell tower. And as with Hitchcock the dialogue is often simultaneously risque and humorous, although more vulgar in keeping with the tenor of modern times.

Eszterhas' script is carefully crafted, and it does not cheat. Life proves ambiguous at many levels, and so does art. The mystery is dark; the action, including a car chase, thrills; and the locale continually shifts, from a cop station to Catherine's lovely seaside house to a colorful bar where Catherine's jealous female lover and Curran engage in a sensual battle for her charms.

Day, night, sun, rain, streets, highways, scenery, ocean, sex, emotion, confrontations, death ... the film envelops everything, perhaps even love. Here, Verhoeven, Eszterhas, Douglas, Stone, have achieved some screen magic of the past April 1, 2008

Very Good BD Transfer

The PQ is very good for a 1990's release but I believe could have been better. The visuals is worth the money I paid. February 14, 2008

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