Timing is everything for a movie’s success, and Basic Instinct had it in 1992, released years before the internet and the sophisticated world of satellite and cable television offered viewers a masturbatory buffet for nominal cost. Fourteen years ago, seeing Sharon Stone uncross her legs or frolic in the nude was a big deal on the big screen. Now, thanks to webcams, anything by anyone is possible.
With the buzz no more and the lust wiped away from our eyes, what’s left is a poorly written, ill conceived erotic thriller. Woefully miscast Michael Douglas strutting around like he’s captain of the football team is the San Francisco detective who falls back into bad habits when he falls for sexy novelist Stone. Honestly, the movie is a dumber, west coast version of Sea of Love, right down to Douglas’s fat partner (George Dzunda).
Too bad that Joe Esterzhas isn’t half the writer Richard Price is. In Sea of Love, Price’s surprise ending was actually, you know, surprising. In Basic Instinct, you know that the bad guy is still at large, but you don’t know why or how you’re supposed to reach that conclusion. That’s par for the course, since Esterzhas’s plot twists throughout are arbitrary, as if the constant motion and copious nudity will keep you distracted.
They don’t. The movie’s central flaw is the Douglas/Stone dynamic. Stone is gorgeous and, according to the groans and lighting in the movie, a real pleasure factory. She is also crazy. Not fight with your ex girlfriend crazy, but stab you in the face crazy. One of her novels is patterned after her parents’ death, the other, which Douglas is investigating, mirrors the murder of her lover. Everything about this woman screams stay away, but there’s Douglas risking his life for nights of passion. Why? It beats me, because Esterzhas trades in motive for sex and Douglas refuses to show any weakness. The main plotline becomes ludicrous.
The same vagueness applies to Stone. Look at The Last Seduction, the far superior, far sexier film noir in which Linda Fiorentino ruined the life of nearly every man she encountered. You followed her exploits because she was pure, self-centered evil. It was like watching a cat play with a ball of string. With Stone’s character, her sex fueled, erratic behavior suffices for Esterzhas. Someone as smart as her should have a plan, a method to her madness. In Esterzhas’s mind, madness is enough; her breasts do the rest.
Give the public credit. When director Paul Verhoeven and Esterzhas teamed up again three years later for Showgirls, the public rejected a second round of copious nudity and aggressive sex served with a heaping side of stupidity. Those who thought Showgirls was an aberration were wrong. Watch Basic Instinct now and you’ll realize that Showgirls was part of the evolution. And with Basic Instinct 2 coming around the bend, with a menopausal Sharon Stone waiting, the timing couldn’t be any worse.
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