Basic Instinct: Special Edition DVD Review

When Ex rock star Johnny Boz is found murdered in his bed the eyes of the police turn straight towards his lover Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone). Suspicions run even higher when Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) discovers that he was murdered in exactly the same way as a character in one of her books. Nick has a dark background himself and is currently receiving counselling from police psychologist Beth Gardner (Jeanne Triplehorn) who also happens to be his Ex-Girlfriend.

As Nick becomes more involved personally with Catherine, her mind games drive him back to drinking and smoking and he starts to distrust everyone. Is Catherine the killer, is it her female lover or is it even someone on the force?

Review

At the time of its release Basic Instinct was a rather controversial film and even today it can be rather shocking as thrillers go. It has some excessively graphic and violent sex scenes that you might not expect for a Hollywood movie. Paul Verhoeven’s (Robocop, Total Recall, Hollow Man) style and influence are clearly visible throughout the film, but he also pays homage to the great Alfred Hitchcock on many occasions. In fact the costumes that Sharon Stone wears in the film were all based on the costumes Kim Novak wore in Vertigo.

Part of the controversy at the time came from the fact that the film so openly portrayed homosexuality/bisexuality in a way that was not usually seen in the mainstream. There is far more than this to the film however, it is a dark, sinister, edge of the seat thriller with plenty of twists that keeps you riveted literally right up to the final camera fade out.

Great directing and a strong script don’t necessarily make for a great movie of course unless the acting is up to the job. Thankfully the cast are excellent and I don’t think anyone else could have pulled off these particular roles as well. I think it’s fair to say that this film was the pinnacle of Sharon Stones career, she captures the mysterious, confident, untrustworthy and of course extremely sexual Catherine Trammel perfectly.

Michael Douglas is also perfect in his role, he is far from a clean-cut heroic cop figure and throughout the film you can really feel him slipping deeper into his darker side as Catherine plays her mind games with him. Mention also has to go to Jeanne Tripplehorn and George Dzundza who play Psyhcholgist (and ex-lover) Beth Gardner and partner / best friend Gus respectively.

Video/Audio

Considering the film is now 10 years old the picture quality on the disk is excellent. The film is presented in the original theatrical 2.35:1 format and is anamorphically enhanced. If I had to make any complaints, then I would say that the picture is perhaps a little too soft in places, however colours are rich and there are very few signs of film defects.

The disk comes with both a Dolby Digital 5.1 and a DTS 5.1 soundtrack. The surround channels do not often get much of a workout except for in some of the more action packed sequences. Having said that, both the DD and DTS tracks are excellent quality with good clear dialogue and the score really comes through. There’s not much difference between the DD and DTS tracks, although to me the DTS sounded just that little bit meatier.

Extras

Disk 1

The Audio Commentary with Paul Verhoeven (Director) and Jan De Bent (Director of Photography) , is another example of an excellent Verhoeven commentary. He and Jan De bent work well off each other and provide lots of information on the making of the film. They also talk quite extensively of the heavy influences in the film, particularly from Hitchcocks work especially Vertigo. If there is any problem with the commentary, then it is the same as the problem with all Verhoeven commentaries. He obviously feels very passionate about his films and speaks with a great enthusiasm, unfortunately because of his accent it can sometimes be a little difficult to pick up all of what he says.

The Audio Commentary With Feminist Critic Camille Paglia, is one of the most unusual commentaries I’ve heard on a DVD. Unlike most filmmaker commentaries that talk about the technical aspects or the background of the filmmaking, this is a feminist writers personal study of the film and her interpretation of it. While I didn’t quite agree with some of her interpretations and opinions it is still a thoroughly engaging and absorbing commentary and well worth a listen.

Disk 2

Blonde Poison: The Making Of Basic Instinct is an excellent featurette. Running at just under 24 minutes it consists of extensive interviews with the filmmakers and some of the cast. While the first half of the feature concentrates on the background of the film itself, the second half talks about the extraordinary reaction that the film received from gay rights activists. There are some interviews with some of these activists included and footage of the protesting that went on during the filming.

The second featurette is simply titled featurette and runs at around 6 minutes long. This is a much less informative feature and mainly consists of scenes from the film in the style of an extended trailer with voice over from cast & crew.

Cleaning up Basic Instinct is a hilarious comparison between the theatrical version of the film and version that have had the language cleaned up for television versions of the film. It shows a sequence of scenes first in the original version then the cleaned up versions. Some of the dubbed voiceovers are awful and don’t even sound like the cast, while the alternative words used are equally as bad.

Storyboards/Screentest is broken into three different sections. First we have a full screen storyboard for the love scene, then we have three storyboard to screen comparisons and finally we have screen tests for Sharon Stone and Jeanne Tripplehorn. One of the most surprising things here is the love scene to storyboard to screen comparison of the love scenes. The storyboards were actually far more sexually graphic than the final film version.

To finish off the second disk we have a Photo Gallery, a Theatrical Trailer and a Teaser Trailer. This is a reasonable, if not outstanding selection of extras on the second disk.

Although the menus are static on both disks, they start up with an animation of an ice-pick thumping into a block of ice and the camera then panning into the side of the ice-block. The film is broken into 33 chapters and subtitles are available in English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish.

Overall

Basic Instinct is a sizzlingly sexual dark thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat through the full 123-minute duration. If you’ve never seen the film (and your old enough to watch it of course) then I would recommend that you get it right now and experience one of the best thrillers that the 1990’s had to offer.

I suspect that most people reading this however have seen the film and want to know if the DVD itself is worth getting. I can wholeheartedly say yes on this matter. While the collection is missing one or two extras that the region 1 disk has it does feature an additional DTS track that was missing from the US release.

Picture quality is also extremely good and the disk comes with two interesting and absorbing commentary tracks. The extras on the second disk are a little thin on the ground and I suspect that they could have easily fitted everything onto one disk. Despite this minor complaint, I am quite happy to award this excellent collectors edition a 4.5 out of 5.

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