A brutal murder. A brilliant killer. A cop who can’t resist the danger. Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone co-star in this thriller about a man who finds within himself an instinct more basic than survival. [Artisan]
Movie reviews:
Grade-A pulp fiction. This erotically charged thriller about the search for an ice-pick murderer in San Francisco rivets attention through its sleek style, attractive cast doing and thinking kinky things, and story, which is as weirdly implausible as it i
The film is for horny pups of all ages who relish the memory of reading stroke books under the covers with a flashlight. Verhoeven has spent $49 million to reproduce that dirty little thrill on the big screen.
Verhoeven’s film is fascinating, if stupid and stylish, if shallow. The story has to move along at a fair clip because otherwise we’d notice how nonsensical it all is. And there is very little to connect with emotionally.
The worst things about Basic Instinct, though, are the explicit “love” scenes. They’re supposed to contribute to a heady equation in which sex, violence and psychology are fused; instead, they’re gratuitous, exploitative, and entirely unerotic.
A perverse, lame-brained thriller that is pornographic, misogynist and homophobic. If that makes it sound appealing, I should also add that it’s silly, boring and intellectually insulting.
