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FILM REVIEWS

BASIC INSTINCT
Review by Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

BASIC INSTINCT (R) Paul Verhoeven's moody, lurid thriller stars Michael Douglas as a jaded cop and Sharon Stone as a bisexual ice princess who becomes the prime suspect in a murder case.

There are four unusually lengthy and explicit sex scenes, but most of them make such a big point of being "hot"- Look! Is that Michael Douglas performing oral sex?!-that they're less erotic than showy.

Stone turns her haughty, slightly blank sexiness into something vampish and ominous-an all-American beauty mask. And Douglas plays a rotter hero with style. The movie has just enough sleaze and drive to keep you watching.

Beneath its heavy-breathing fripperies, though, Basic Instinct is mechanical and routine, a muddle of Hitchcockian red herrings and standard cop-thriller ballistics. Verhoeven tries to play the clunky, implausible script (by Joe Eszterhas) as a semi-joke. He doesn't quite seem to realize that an overwrought cliche is still a cliche. B-