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Weekly Archive > DVD
of the Day > 03/31/06
Sex, Sadism, and Silliness
by sean siska
Basic Instinct: Ultimate Edition (Unrated Director's Cut)
Joe Eszterhas
 
 
Before unleashing Showgirls into the world, writer Joe Eszterhas and director Paul Verhoeven made Basic Instinct. A movie that relies more on shock value (lethal ice picks and genitalia flashing) than competent elements of storytelling, Basic Instinct is a series of graphic events, colorful expletives, and glossy filmmaking disguised as a whodunit thriller. Michael Douglas, the sexually manipulated everyman (see Fatal Attraction and Disclosure for further particulars on this), plays Detective Nick "Shooter" Curran, a cop with a violent past. When he gets involved in a murder case involving novelist Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone), Nick finds himself caught in a web of deceit and violence that may or may not leave him romantically entangled with the very murderer he's seeking. While the setup for the film is engrossing, the movie ultimately proves to be so tripped up by its own tortuous logic, the final reveal of the killer makes absolutely no sense at all. Although mentioned, Eszterhas is absent from all the supplementals, keeping talk about the story and screenplay to a minimum.
Basic Instinct: Ultimate Edition (Unrated Director's Cut)
Live/Artisan Entertainment
Unrated; 127 min.
$19.98
Buy it now
Dennis Sampson is a commercial production coordinator and unproduced screenwriter. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his better half, Susan, and their dog Tripp.
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