Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
Another entry into my prestigious list of films that I’ve surely seen, that turns out that I actually haven’t, but have just seen it parodied so much back in the day that those parodies have become the film in my mind. With, I think perhaps a bit of accidental cross-filing of Fatal Attraction thrown in for good measure.
Basic Instinct is more of a return to the kind of films that brought Verhoeven to international attention, being, it says here, an erotic neo-noir. I’m not sure it qualifies on either count, but who am I to argue with Joe Eszterhas?
Michael Douglas’s San Francisco Detective Nick Curran is charged with investigating the death of a retired rock star, stabbed to death with an ice pick. Prime suspect is Boz’s bird, Sharon Stone’s Catherine Tramell, a novelist who’s last work featured murders with ice pick. Suspicious behaviour, or is Catherine being framed?
She’s not particularly forthcoming when questioned, well, with everything apart from the more delicate parts of her anatomy in that scene, but seeing as there’s nothing more than Nick’s hunch linking Catherine with the murder, she’s free to go.
Nick takes it on himself to obsess over bringing her down, an obsession that worries his girlfriend and psychologist Jeanne Tripplehorn’s Dr. Beth Garner, given that Nick is still trying to get back on the straight and narrow after accidentally shooting some tourists while high on cocaine.
He tries to get under Catherine’s skin, who responds in kind, claiming to be writing a new novel with Nick as a basis. When it seems that she’s got more details about his past misdemeanours than is publicly available, Nick blows up at the internal affairs cop that’s been on his case, suspecting him of leaking the information. He soon shows up dead, putting Nick in the frame.
And, well, so it goes, with messy details about both Nick and Catherine’s past being brought up and strewn around like dirty laundry, all during a torrid and frankly nonsensical affair, building to an equally nonsensical conclusion.
Look, I’m not disputing the fact that Joe Eszterhas scripts have made a lot of money over the years, I’m just arguing that whatever success they have found is in spite of the script, rather than because of it. That’s certainly the case here, as both Douglas and Stone, as well as the array of supporting roles, really go all out in selling their characters and in conjunction with this bombing along at a fair ol’ lick, it’s not an unenjoyable watch. It’s just one that as soon as its barrage stops, you be left with many more questions than answers, but fortunately, won’t care enough to bother about any of them.
Basic Instinct was, at best, a disposable potboiler back in 1992, and I think from the safety of today’s far flung future the only reason to go back to this would be to try and understand the cultural impact this had, although even in that regard, it’s only really that one scene that we’re talking about. By no means the weakest on today’s list, but not worth a lot of your time.