Basic Instinct (1992)
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Catherine, a novelist with an insatiable sexual appetite, becomes a prime suspect when her boyfriend is brutally murdered -- a crime she had described in her latest story.
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14 films that influenced Basic Instinct
What critics say influenced Basic Instinct
Despite overtly referencing Hitchcock - Tramell's dresses directly mirror Kim Novak's in Vertigo, as do some of the shots - Basic Instinct is a far more lurid affair than anything by the master of suspense.
Traces of it can be seen in everything from “Basic Instinct” to David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive,” and countless other thrillers.
All of this leads to wild car chases that may remind movie fans of "Bullitt," San Francisco settings that bring to mind "Vertigo" and, as Stone's character becomes more of an enigma, a character that echoes Kim Novak or Tippi Hedren in Alfred Hitchcock's later thrillers.
Not since Rita Hayworth vamped her way across the screen in Gilda has a woman so sexually dominated a movie as Sharon Stone does in Basic Instinct.
Douglas is always believable as the half-rotten hero, Jeanne Tripplehorn is a real find as his ex-lover, and Stone (who played Arnold Schwarzenegger's devious wife in Verhoeven's "Total Recall") comes through with the kind of dazzling icy/hot performance that made a star of Kathleen Turner in "Body Heat."
In this regard, the film is a perfect bookend to Body Heat , which doesn't even try to hide the fact that it's nothing but Double Indemnity with Kathleen Turner's tits on display, only where Body Heat was still trying very much to be erotic (and succeeding), Basic Instinct is too cerebral and curdled to really land on that level, and it's not aiming to, I don't think.
But the script, by Joe Eszterhaus (which reportedly got Hollywood into a bidding war and ultimately sold for the record-breaking price of $3 million), is a rag-tag mishmash that recycles everything from "Dressed to Kill" and "Body Heat" to "Cruising" and even Eszterhaus' own "Jagged Edge."
Screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, who did "Jagged Edge" and "The Music Box," resorts to his tired old elements, including illicit love on both sides of the law and a murder weapon that ends up being the macabre punchline.
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Not since screenwriter Oliver Stone and director Michael Cimino teamed for the 1985 police thriller Year of the Dragon has there been a more sensationalistic piece of high-glitz trash.
His fourth film on the subject, "Basic Instinct" is obviously a reiteration of the stories and subtexts of his earlier films, "Jagged Edge," "Betrayed" and "Music Box." Writing to a population battered with headlines about pedophiles, cannibals, one-man sperm banks, sleep-around pols, Eszterhas exploits all of our fashionable fears.
For that princely sum, Eszterhas rewrote "Jagged Edge" and disgorged such lines as ''Look lady, we can do this downtown if we have to" and "You like watching, don't you?"
The screenplay, by Joe Eszterhas , resembles his “ Jagged Edge ” (1985) in keeping the secret until the last shot.
This, you may recall, is the movie that aroused the ire of gay groups, that seemed destined for an NC-17 rating (though, of course, it was trimmed to get a more commercially desirable R), that had a script by Joe Eszterhas (Jagged Edge, Flashdance) that fetched a record $3 million.
Writer Joe Eszterhas shamelessly reworks ideas and themes he had earlier exploited in films such as Jagged Edge and Music Box, but the sheer overheated nature of Verhoeven's direction makes this extremely watchable.
In this regard, the film is a perfect bookend to Body Heat , which doesn't even try to hide the fact that it's nothing but Double Indemnity with Kathleen Turner's tits on display, only where Body Heat was still trying very much to be erotic (and succeeding), Basic Instinct is too cerebral and curdled to really land on that level, and it's not aiming to, I don't think.
His fourth film on the subject, "Basic Instinct" is obviously a reiteration of the stories and subtexts of his earlier films, "Jagged Edge," "Betrayed" and "Music Box." Writing to a population battered with headlines about pedophiles, cannibals, one-man sperm banks, sleep-around pols, Eszterhas exploits all of our fashionable fears.
Writer Joe Eszterhas shamelessly reworks ideas and themes he had earlier exploited in films such as Jagged Edge and Music Box, but the sheer overheated nature of Verhoeven's direction makes this extremely watchable.
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Screenwriter Ezsterhas really doesn't do anything well: there's no sense of authentic cop milieu (which "Sea of Love" had in spades) and the dialogue is all generic; there's no genuine wit and the relationships aren't sharply imagined.
Announcing the big-budget erotic thriller cycle that peaked with Basic Instinct, Sea of Love has its Cinemax lapses in taste (Helen's grocery store seduction is cheesy beyond the pale), but most films of the genre lack sophistication from which to lapse.
(I was reminded of James Belushi’s line from the great 1988 actioner Red Heat: “There’s never a cop around when you need one; you make a U-turn and they’re all over your ass!”)