Basic Instinct
Basic Instinct (in Spain, Instinto básico; in Latin America, Bajos instincts); is a 1992 American film directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas.
Plot
In the beginning, Johnny Boz, a retired rock star, is making love to a blonde, and she kills him, first pinning him (she ties his hands to the head of the bed with a white scarf) and repeatedly stabbing him with a ice pick. Nick Curran and Gus Moran of the San Francisco Police Department take charge of the investigation.
Nick and Gus visit the rocker's girlfriend, writer Catherine Tramell. They find her in a luxurious house by the beach. There is a short interview. They just slept together, Catherine tells them. There is no evidence to stop her and the agents leave.
Then they observe that in a novel by Tramell, the protagonist commits a crime with similar characteristics. There are two probabilities: that the author is her murderer or that some reader did it to incriminate her. They pick her up at the beach house for questioning. In her car, she tells the plot of her next novel: a policeman falls in love with the protagonist, who ends up killing him. On interrogation, she shows a heightened interest in Nick. Tramell denies killing Boz and the lie detector proves him right, though Nick believes otherwise.
They later discover that a tutor from Tramell, at the university, was murdered in a similar fashion to Boz. Catherine is also close friends with a woman who murdered her husband and her children in a fit of madness: according to Catherine, the woman helped her a lot to understand the murderous instinct. It is also suspected that Catherine killed her parents for her inheritance, as it was a suspicious accident and she had written a book about a boy killing her parents.
Nick pays Catherine another visit. He realizes that she knows too much about him and suspects that she has seen her file. Beth Garner, his psychologist (and a psychologist for the police department)—Nick had accidentally killed two tourists—passed his file to Nilsen in Internal Affairs, who sold it to Tramell, Nick finds out.. He assaults Nilsen, who is found murdered shortly after, causing Nick to be suspended.
Nick meets Tramell and they make love. While they are at it, it appears that Catherine is going to kill him, as she ties his hands to the head of the bed with a white scarf, as Boz had appeared when they found her body. Roxy, a lover of Catherine's, feels jealous of Nick and tries to kill him with the car. However, she ends up dying in an accident for which the police believe that Nick was responsible.
Catherine seems genuinely shaken by the death of her "friend" (much more so than Boz's death) and she's having a relationship with Nick again, confessing that a girl named Lisa had been stalking her in college. He then discovers that Roxy had killed both of her brothers with her father's razor blade. Nick goes to ask about this Lisa, but the girl's name is missing from the university's records.
Later Catherine spells her last name, realizes she made a mistake, and goes back to search. She then discovers that Lisa is actually Beth, but when she asks her she states that it was actually Catherine who was obsessed with her, and not the other way around. Then Catherine herself tells him that it is not true, and insists that she was the complainant of the fact. Nick goes to get the complaint, but Nilsen had pulled it up a year earlier. Nick now doubts Catherine's guilt. He believes that it was Beth who killed Boz by pretending to be Catherine to frame her, and that she then killed Nilsen because he knew of her earlier obsession with her suspect. He goes looking for Beth's husband, as she claims he changed her name because he got married, and discovers that he was murdered. He questions the sheriff and he tells him that there were no suspects, that there were rumors of a mistress on Beth's part, and that about a year ago Nilsen had gone there to ask the same thing.
Catherine finishes the book based on Nick, and cuts off her relationship with him.
A girl from Catherine and Beth's dorm calls Gus, saying she knows the whole story about both of them. They both go, but only Gus goes up because Nick is suspended. However, it turns out to be an ambush. As Gus exits the elevator floor he is killed by a hooded figure with an ice pick. Nick goes upstairs suspecting the fate of his friend and finds Gus dying. He hears some noises, he gets up and sees Beth, who says that they sent her a message to meet Gus there. She advances with her hand in her pocket and he, scared, shoots her. She confesses that she loved him and dies.
The cops see a bloody cape (bearing the initials of the police department), a blonde wig, and the awl on the stairs, and search Beth's house. There they find a gun like the one that killed Nilsen, and in a drawer, Catherine's books and newspaper clippings. They think that the culprit of the crimes is Beth and they close the case.
When Nick gets home, Catherine is there. She tells him that she broke up with him because she didn't want to lose him, since everyone he cared about died. They make love again, and when she asks him what's going to happen next, he tells her that they're going to make love like lions, have dwarfs and be happily ever after, Catherine reaches under the bed as if looking for something and She tells Nick that she doesn't want to have children, he tells her that then they would make love and be happy, then Catherine kisses Nick and they start making love again. The camera pans down under the bed to show what Catherine was looking for: an ice pick, suggesting that she might be the real killer and she wants to kill Nick too.
Cast
- Michael Douglas - Det. Nick Curran
- Sharon Stone - Catherine Tramell
- George Dzundza - Gus Moran
- Jeanne Tripplehorn - Dr. Beth Garner
- Denis Arndt - Lt. Philip Walker
- Leilani Sarelle - Roxy
- Bruce A. Young - Andrews
- Chelcie Ross - Capt. Talcott
- Dorothy Malone - Hazel Dobkins
Production
The film production was filmed entirely in 1991. It was shot in California in many different locations. It was also shot in San Francisco, where gay activists unsuccessfully tried to sabotage the shoot, considering it homophobic and misogynistic. Finally, the director had to cut the film 40 times in order not to qualify as a porn film.
World premiere dates
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Panama
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Greece
Mexico
Norway
Peru
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Slovakia
Sweden
Uruguay
Venezuela
Reception
The film was a huge commercial success and is ranked as one of the best thrillers of the 1990s with a number of high intensity and unforgettable sequences. It was the first film for actress Jeanne Tripplehorn and was also the film that made actress Sharon Stone an international star.
Awards
Oscar 1992
| Category | Person | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Best soundtrack | Jerry Goldsmith | Candidate |
| Better assembly | Frank J. Urioste | Candidate |
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