Basic Instinct [DVD]

Great film

OK - I'm a huge Verhoeven fan and I was only ever interested in upgrading my copy of Basic Instinct if I was getting the almighty director's original cut as opposed to the (admittedly slightly) tampered-with US version.Needless to say that, as usual, Optimum have released yet another fantastic release on Blu-Ray in the UK.Firstly we have the director's cut in all its gory glory as Verhoeven originally intended the audience to see it.Secondly the UK Blu-ray release sports a superior transfer over any previous DVD versions and (rumour has it) even the US Blu-Ray version.Lastly, the audio is an improvement presented here in a lossless 5.1 DTS Master Audio mix.I always enjoyed Basic Instinct for its unflinching honesty towards sex and violence. Verhoeven brings out the best and ultimately worst in all of the characters in his homage to Hitchcock. In another director's hands this could easily have ended up a mess; look at the sequel for proof.The photography is stunning and not just for those masters of 'bation' among us (see previous childish reviews), but mainly for the shots of LA, Tramell's sea-view house and the night-club scene to name only a few. The car chase that takes place on roads carved into the side of mountain looks and sounds great on Blu-Ray and is still my favourite scene in the film for reasons I can't quite explain!Gerry Goldsmith's stunning score (surely a career highlight?) breathes free and easy on Blu and thanks to the film's age is given a full overture during the opening credits setting the scene for what is to come.I am incredibly pleased with this Blu-Ray release of Basic Instinct, my only complaint is that there are absolutely no special features. Now, as a student of Verhoeven I do not need things explaining, but the director/writer's commentary would surely have been possible? Verhoeven is open and honest in all of his commentaries and for that alone to have been added to this release would have made it five out of five stars for me.Thank you Optimum for releasing another excellent quality release and for using the director's cut.TS

`Basic Instinct' is a great crime movie! On its release nearly twenty years ago - yes! that many already - it broke new ground for violence, explicit sexual scenes and graphic close-ups of all kinds of nastiness - criminal and otherwise! Michael Douglas, who served a long apprenticeship on `The Streets of San Francisco' found himself in a peach of a role, one in which he could play to the limits of his talent and experience. With the female lead, Sharon Stone, another Hollywood `A' lister, a good story and great direction, not to mention the sinewy, creepy music that weaves its way throughout, the film rightly turned out to be a big hit at the box office. It remains an icon of its genre to this day, Stone plays a female crime writer, the plot of whose book curiously matches an actual murder event; and a pretty gruesome one at that! She immediately becomes a suspect. Cue Douglas who is assigned to investigate the case. His, shall we say, adventures, that follow are the gist of the film. This is a tense, gripping movie. Lots of twists and turns and scenes of extreme violence and brutality that are not for the squeamish. The scenes of sexual activity, though entirely necessary to the development of the film, leave little to the imagination. In one memorable scene where Stone is sitting facing her accusers during an interview, she crosses and uncrosses her legs, making it plain that she is wearing little under her skirt. Whether this particular, brief moment is gratuitous or not is arguable. I do not think the movie would have suffered by its absence. But it is this provocative, knickerless few seconds for which the movie has become renowned and from which it has garnered it's fame. In actuality the movie is a very good crime thriller, if not an excellent one, in it's own right. However, if ever a film deserved its `18' category, this one does!