Stars: Sharon Stone, Michael Douglas, Jeanne Tripplehorn, George Dzundza, Dennis Arndt, Leilani Sarelle

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Summary: Detective Nick Curran investigates the death of a man found axed and tied to a bed. As his investigation gets under way he becomes involved with one of the chief suspects, writer Catherine Tramell.

This steamy thriller to end all steamy thrillers stars Michael Douglas as Nick, a boozy San Francisco police detective who finds himself drawn to the prime suspect in a murder case--manipulative, sexually uninhibited novelist Catherine Trammell (Sharon Stone). Catherine's latest book features a murder uncannily similar to the one Nick is investigating, and as the pair engage in a mating dance of dangerous one-upmanship, more murders occur, all described in her current work, about a boozy cop in love with a killer. Nick's psychiatrist (Jeanne Tripplehorn), and cop partner (George Dzundza) are both worried about him, and Catherine's jealous lesbian lover (Leilani Sarelle) may be trying to kill him, but Nick is just too turned on to care.
Director Paul Verhoeven shows an admirable lack of restraint in this ludicrously enjoyable thriller, a sort of postmodern noir with Joe Eszterhas's script coming off like Mamet by way of Penthouse. Stone and Douglas exhibit fine chemistry (and most of their bodies), and there's some lovely Bay Area scenery courtesy of cinematographer Jan de Bont (who went on to direct films such as SPEED and TWISTER). Wayne Knight (Newman from SEINFELD) and Mitch Pileggi (Skinner from THE X-FILES) are precinct heads who question Catherine in the infamous leg-crossing scene.

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Despite its inevitable fate as a critically reviled box-office flop, Basic Instinct 2sure has a funny way of holding your attention. It's not just Sharon Stone's trash-talk and occasional nudity that keeps you watching, but also the way she gamely earns every cent of her $14 million paycheck, vamping like a real pro in her second outing as mystery novelist and alleged serial killer Catherine Tramell. Now living in London, Catherine sets her lethal sights on Michael Glass (David Morrissey), the control-freak psychiatrist assigned to evaluate her as a risk-addicted suspect in the "accidental" killing of a star soccer player. Turns out Catherine's just getting started (or is she?), and that's bad news for Glass's ex-wife, a tabloid journalist, and the Scotland Yard detective (David Thewlis) who's desperate to put Catherine in jail. With plenty of sex, murder and salacious dialogue, BI2is certainly never boring, especially with the morbid fascination of seeing the once formidable Stone torpedo her career in a sequel that took 14 years (and countless drafts of screenplays and at least one high-profile lawsuit) to bring to the screen. She's still impressively hot at age 47, prompting critic Roger Ebert to observe, "the Catherine Tramell role cannot be played well, but Sharon Stone can play it badly better than any other actress alive." So, while this ill-fated sequel falls just short of being a guilty pleasure (if only because Morrissey is no match for Michael Douglas in the 1992 original), it's enjoyably absurd and slickly produced, and the hot-tub scene is guaranteed to wear out the freeze-frame function on a lot of DVD players. For some viewers, that's reason enough for multiple viewings.-- Jeff Shannon

Aspect Ratio:	2.35 Wide Screen, 16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Audio Commentary, Making Of Documentary, Cleaning Up Basic Instinct And Comparison Of The TV Version To The Theatrical Version, Featurette, Photo Gallery, Storyboard Comparisons, Theatrical Trailer, Theatrical Teaser
Subtitles:	Dutch, English, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish
Year:	1992
Release Date:	May 20, 2002
Runtime:	120 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	M P 006 D
Keywords:	Special, Basic, General, Edition, Wide, Screen, Instinct, Thriller
Genre:	Thriller