Basic Instinct

Director Paul Verhoeven's reputation is built on his wonderful lack of taste and restraint, and these “qualities” are fully to the fore in this controversial but massively successful thriller. Sharon Stone became a sex symbol of the 1990s for her cool portrayal of the predatory novelist who may or may not be a murderer, but who enjoys tormenting policeman Michael Douglas all the same. Writer Joe Eszterhas shamelessly reworks ideas and themes he had earlier exploited in films such as Jagged Edge and Music Box, but the sheer overheated nature of Verhoeven's direction makes this extremely watchable.

Overheated, overlong melodramatic thriller with an implausible plot that requires its audience to accept that Michael Douglas is irresistibly attractive to bisexual women. But the skill and pace of the direction makes one regret that they were not exercis