BASIC INSTINCT (1992)

“I wasn't dating him. I was fucking him."

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Writer: Joe Eszterhas

Cinematography: Jan de Bont

Editor: Frank J. Urioste

Music: Jerry Goldsmith

Costume Designer: Ellen Mirojnick

Notable Cast: Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, George Dzundza, Jeanne Triplehorn, Denis Arndt, Bruce A. Young, Chelcie Ross, Wayne Knight, Daniel Von Bargen, Stephen Tobolowsky, Jack McGee, Mitch Pileggi, James Rebhorn

Not sure anybody was riding the zeitgeist of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s quite like director Paul Verhoeven. Establishing himself with European arthouse fare in the 1970’s, he burst onto the American cinematic scene with… no, not Robocop, but some flick called Flesh + Blood. No idea, never saw it, and no interest in seeing it based on the description. Not my bag.

NEXT was the seminal, iconic, legendary Robocop, one of the very best films ever made. I highly recommend the 4 part docu-series, Robodoc, which is required viewing for any fan of the sci-fi cop movie. You get a true nuts and bolts look at the making of the film, with some choice interviews of the main players, Verhoeven among them. Don’t mind Peter Weller, who seems as much of a dick as he has ever been.

Verhoeven followed that with Total Recall, another seminal sci-fi film with a cult following we’ve already covered here. Can you imagine making not one, but two stone cold classics, and IN A ROW! Absolutely insane. Insane. The cocaine must have been so good back then.

And then Verhoeven completes the trifecta with his next picture. No, not the trifecta of science fiction, but the trifecta of instant classics, with Basic Instinct. Pivoting from sci-fi to the erotic thrillers of his youth, Verhoeven delivered another banger with his trademark blend of terrific action, cinematography, music and casting.

I suppose all greats need a downfall, and what a spectacular downfall it was with Showgirls, starring that giraffe looking chick from Saved by the Bell as some dancer/stripper in Vegas, who at one point seizure fucks Kyle MacLachlan in a pool. Look, it’s not a great movie, but it’s not THAT bad. It’s entertaining, for the most part, even when you’re rolling your eyes at the antics on screen.

It’s just such a waste of the Dutchman’s prodigious talents. 3 years between Instinct and Showgirls, and then another 2 years until his (short-lived) comeback with Starship Troopers in 1997. That took him out of the game for 5 years! After making 3 great films in a row, he fumbled the bag, badly, and I don’t think he recovered aside from the dead cat bounce, so to speak, of Troopers.

Post Starship Troopers, he made the execrable 2000 film, Hollow Man, which, in my mind, is way worse than Showgirls. At least Showgirls was fun and had lots of tits and ass, Hollow Man is just a chore to sit through. Kevin Bacon is not a leading man. Good supporting actor (JFK), good ensemble guy (Tremors), awful leading man (you can really pick any flick he’s the lead in, and be assured it sucks ass). And that’s just the first of that film’s problems.

After that, for some reason, Verhoeven was placed in director jail! This cat made 4 of the best films from 1987 to 1997 and then Hollywood just told him to fuck off back to Europe. Which he did. I know lots of directors who made way more than 2 shitty films, and ZERO great films, who still get work. Don’t think we’ll ever find out what happened to Verhoeven, but if he says it was his choice to go back to making small European films, I call bullshit. Maybe you make one for old time’s sake, but to just abandon Hollywood altogether?

Makes no sense.

None whatsoever.

And then, to cap it off, since 2000’s Hollow Man, he’s only made 4 films! FOUR! What the fuck happened!?!?! God, the movie biz is so fucking mysterious. Maybe old Paulie pissed off the wrong talentless exec, wouldn’t bend the knee to suck yet another diseased, demonic dick. Who the fuck knows. Sad.

Not sad? Having Verhoeven’s 4 great films available on physical media to watch and savor whenever the mood strikes us. Hollywood may have kicked his ass to the curb, but we, the paying audience, are under no such obligation to follow the dictates of those scumbags. Verhoeven is a modern master, and for that, he should be forever fêted and lionized, because guys like Verhoeven come along once in a lifetime.

When Basic Instinct came out, it stirred a lot of controversy, both for its frank depictions of sex and using bi-sexual characters as villains (and the fact the screenwriter was paid millions for the spec script, unheard of in those days). Seems quaint now when you watch the film, but make no mistake, the seeds of all the left-wing commie “idpol” horseshit they shove down our throats on a quotidinal basis these days had its origin in the early ‘90s, with the rise of political correctness.

All of this was on my mind when the lights came down way back when the film premiered. Much like now, I could not give less of a shit what some commie activists thought of a new Paul Verhoeven movie.

All I cared about was one thing, is it any good?

1ST 5 MINUTES

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9cbul6

After the dope TriStar and Carolco logos, we get a proper opening credits sequence, set to the dulcet, mysterious tones of Jerry Goldsmith’s hypnotic score. The imagery here is like looking through a shit and piss colored kaleidoscope. To this day, I have no idea what this is supposed to represent. A fractured reality? A fractured mind? Because we’re dealing with a psychopath? Shards of ice? I don’t know. Doesn’t track.

But the music is fantastic. I’ve never been a big Jerry Goldsmith fan, but his work with Verhoeven in the early ‘90s unlocked something within the old maestro. Between this and Total Recall, you get two fantastic scores that can be listened to and enjoyed independent of the films they were created for. That’s good work. Music is so important to a successful film, and the music by Goldsmith here does real yeoman’s work. It’s easily one of the most memorable features of this… feature.

As the credits finish, we dissolve into an ornately decorated bedroom, and pan up to a mirrored ceiling, a couple engaged in fucking on the bed below. We pan down to them, the woman, blonde, on top, riding the man. The music turns sinister as she binds his hands with a white cloth to the bedpost. He seems into it despite the music, even sucking her tit quickly as she ties him up. She rides him harder and harder until arching her back to grab something off screen.

An ice pick!

Which she uses to brutally murder the guy just as he is climaxing! The unrated version of this kill is wild. That shot of the ice pick going through this dude’s face is amazing. Really makes you wince every time you see it. Top notch effects work right up front, which is a great sign.

Cut to a daytime shot of San Francisco as an unmarked cop car with siren blaring drives up to meet other cop cars at our murder location, a pretty sweet looking joint from the outside, complete with ivy going up the wall. Out of the car hops our intrepid homicide detectives, played by George Dzundza (love) and the great Michael Douglas, back on the streets of San Francisco!

I absolutely love the cinematography in this movie from the truly great cinematographer, Jan de Bont. Shitty director, but his photography work was sublime. A real shame the camera lost him when he switched chairs. Oh well. But here, I want to bite this image. The clarity. The pop of colors. The way the sun shines off objects. There’s a timeless quality to the cinematography in this film. All the camerawork in this film is stunning, but the daylight scenes in particular send me to another place.

We’re barely 5 minutes in and we’ve got great music, a hot sex scene that turned gnarly, and fantastic cinematography. Added to which, you got peak scumbag era Michael Douglas essaying the lead. What more could you want?

I’m already in up to my balls here as we conclude the 1ST 5 with Dzundza and Douglas entering the murdered man’s house, who we find out is some old rock star.

Tits, gore, Douglas, Goldsmith, de Bont, fucking Verhoeven! Who on Earth is taking this film off after 5 minutes? WHO?!?

The rest of the flick

This is a patently ridiculous film. Ridiculous. Ridiculously fun! Ridiculously entertaining! Ridiculously sexy! But ridiculous all the same. Perhaps the seeds of Showgirls’ shittiness were planted here, but where that film went way over the taste/trash line, this film skirts it brilliantly.

Michael Douglas plays Nick Curran, a homicide detective in San Francisco who, when we meet him, has quit smoking and drinking, seemingly because of some purposely vague backstory of him shooting two tourists by accident. As a result of that shooting, he is required to see a department shrink, Beth Garner, played by the great Jeanne Tripplehorn (where the Hell has SHE been?!)!

Man, was she something back in the ‘90s. Between this and Waterworld… YOWZA! She’s so damn cute and sexy at the same time with that cupie doll mouth and bedroom eyes. It is quickly revealed that Nick and Beth had a romantic relationship during the course of his therapy, but has now ended when we pick up with them.

Sharon Stone plays Catherine Tramell, the “girlfriend” of the guy who was stabbed in the opening sequence. She lives with her girlfriend, Roxy, and writes cheesy murder novels for a living. Not that she needs to, as she inherited over 100 million bucks after her parents died in a boating accident. She immediately becomes a suspect in the murder as she was the last person seen with the victim, in addition to the fact that, historically, people in her orbit always seem to magically find themselves dead before their time.

Over the course of the investigation, Nick and Catherine end up in a sexual relationship, obviously. But it is how they get there that proves the most interesting part of this film.

Their first encounter is at her beach house outside the city, on a balcony deck overlooking the Pacific as the waves crash into the rocks below (Nick is the wave, Catherine is the rock that scatters and discombobulates it).

Check out de Bont’s photography here in this scene. To get the actors lit while still not blowing out the sun drenched background is INSANE! Whatever he did to achieve this look, wow. Looks stunning.

It’s during this first encounter that Nick realizes, in a big way, how Catherine is not like other women he has met. She is very blunt, very direct, and doesn’t mince words, especially when it comes to her sexcapades with the murder victim. Even if she didn’t look like Sharon Stone, it’s clear Nick would be intrigued by this woman. Just the furtive glances between Nick and his partner, Gus, are all the evidence we need to know they’ve never questioned someone quite like Catherine.

For Gus, he just thinks she’s a wacko, but for Nick, well, he’s thinking what most men would be thinking here. Yes, she’s a wacko, but a hot wacko, and for a guy like Nick, crazy pussy is good pussy.

And speaking of pussy, let’s get to the standout sequence in this film, the thing that everyone remembers and others endlessly parody. I’m talking, of course, about the money shot, the viscer on the visor, as Davis so eloquently put in Grand Canyon, the pussy shot, the bush in the… you get the picture.

Nick and Gus get permission to bring Catherine in for questioning, and go to her beach house to bring her in. She says she needs to change first, and leaves them in her foyer, with a conspicuously placed newspaper with Nick’s picture on the cover laying on her desk, discussing the tourist shooting (Nick’s nickname is “Shooter” because of that incident). Nick and Gus find that odd.

At that moment, Nick notices he can see into Catherine’s bedroom and spies her getting undressed. Our first hint of what a scumbag anti-hero he is, instead of averting his gaze like a respectable person, he walks a little further in the house to get a better look! Fucking hilarious.

On their ride back to the station, Catherine begins her first in a series of devious mind games with Nick. The standout here being her teasing and testing of Nick’s newfound cigarette free lifestyle.

First, she asks if he has a cigarette, to which he responds that he quit. Then she pulls her own cigarette case out, despite just asking for one, and when Nick questions this, she offers him a cigarette, and he says he just told her he quit.

He doesn’t seem to catch on that she is already fucking with him. But he definitely pays attention when she tells them about her new book, a detective who falls for the wrong woman and ends up dead as a result! Uh-oh!

Nick, Gus and the other cops, along with the DA, played by the great Wayne Knight, bring Catherine in to the interrogation room for questioning. And it’s the usual nonsensical production design you only find in movies.

Can anyone, anywhere, tell me of a police station or interrogation room that looks or is lit like this? It’s SO ridiculous, yet doesn’t feel out of place for some reason.

The entire scene is a masterclass in sexual tension, as all the men assemble on one side of the room, while Catherine, all by herself, wearing angelic white, sits on the other side, swatting away their queries like she’s fucking Neo in the Matrix. As she answers their questions, she begins to focus on Nick, and starts personalizing her answers like they’re the only two in the room, to the point the other cops think they know each other previously.

Sharon Stone is so good in this scene, as she is throughout the movie, as she uses her feminine wiles to disarm the accusatory men, culminating with her flashing them her bare naked pussy and sparse blonde pubic hair as she spreads her legs right before crossing them again in my Favorite Shot in the whole movie. Maybe it’s a cheat, but come on, how do you write about your Favorite Shot in Basic Instinct and not pick the money shot? HOW?

This whole exchange has got Nick all fucked up inside, all amped up, hopped up, you name it. After dropping her back at her house in a rainstorm (love how she runs barefoot from the car in the puddles, very elemental and Mother Nature-y), he meets his partner, Gus, and superior, Lt. Walker, played by the truly great Denis Arndt (who I’ve never seen in anything else, but is fantastic here) at a local bar the guys from the precinct frequent in my Favorite Scene in the whole picture.

Some may choose the aforementioned pussy scene, or the dope club scene, or Nick and Catherine fucking, or the game of chicken between Nick and Roxy, all worthy entries, but no, for my money, this scene has it all.

And it starts with layers. I love scenes with multiple layers of action happening concurrently. Here, Nick bursts into the bar from the downpour outside, shakes himself off as he says hi to the bartender and walks over to Gus and Lt. Walker, takes a seat as they bust his balls about driving Catherine home. From the background, the bartender yells out to Nick, “Evian?” to which Nick replies in the negative, and asks for a double on the rocks.

First off, how much fucking money did Evian pay Hollywood productions back then? I swear it was the most ubiquitous brand of water for years in movies, and you know what? It paid off, because to this day I see Evian as an elevated water brand.

I’m a movie guy, this kind of propaganda works on me!

Second, love the reaction of Gus and Lt. Walker to Nick asking for a drink. He feigns ignorance of why they’d be concerned, and they leave it be. But check behind Gus and Lt. Walker, you see two other cops also react to Nick ordering the booze, but there’s no attention called to it, no cutaway to a CU of them eyeballing Nick, no, just slightly out of focus in the background.

The second layer.

It turns out, these two guys are the Internal Affairs cops who investigated Nick in his tourist shooting, one of whom is played by the great Daniel Von Bargen, one of Jonathan Demme’s company players, in a fantastic little scumbag performance. He really shines in this film, especially this scene.

Nick takes a meaningful first sip of the booze before returning to talk of the case, where Nick thinks all the deaths around Catherine are connected, and she’s the common denominator, to which his boss throws cold water all over. At this point, the third layer of the scene, Beth walks into the bar, sees Nick at the other end as he calls out to the bartender for another double. Von Bargen’s Nilsen makes his presence known with this second drink, goading Nick into a confrontation by calling him “Shooter” and being an all-around prick as he hand delivers Nick’s drink to the table.

Beth watches from afar as this plays out.

Nilsen makes some jokes about Nick drinking again, to which Nick retorts he’s off duty, dismisses Nilsen with a quip about putting in for overtime. In my Favorite Line in the whole picture, Nilsen is not amused, “Don’t work too hard, Shooter, might drive you to drink!” LOVE Von Bargen’s delivery here. He’s SO good.

Nilsen gets the desired reaction when Nick jumps out of his chair and threatens to kick his teeth in (love the camera move here as Douglas stands up, so smooth). Beth rushes over to break it up. Nilsen makes some more jokes about Nick’s “favorite shrink.” Beth gets pissed and also flips out on Nilsen, prompting him to say, mockingly, “Hoo hoo hoo, you two kids have a fun time tonight!” Nilsen is so deliciously shitty. And it’s all Von Bargen and that inimitable way he speaks.

Funny aside, but years ago, walking in Manhattan by the Flatiron Building, and who do I see walking toward me, but the man himself, Daniel Von Bargen! I could not fucking believe it. Yes, friends, I’m the type to go up to actors in public, especially if we’re passing each other on the street, and double especially if I love the shit out of them! As he passed, I said, “Daniel Von Bargen?” He turned around, amazed someone didn’t just recognize his face, but actually knew his name. You could tell this never happens to him. And then, when I rattled off some of the films I remembered him from, he went into the stratosphere, said I just made his week!

Probably one of the best celebrity encounters I have ever had, as the man’s humility was on full display. Such a shame how his life ended. Tragic, really. Time took you from this Earth too soon, DVB. May you rest in the everlasting peace of the white male power structure!

So, after that conflagration at the bar, an inebriated Nick goes back to Beth’s apartment with her and immediately jumps her bones, much to her surprise. Maybe this played differently back in 1992, but I think it’s pretty clear Nick rapes Beth here. And no, anon, it’s not date rape, no such thing exists. There is only RAPE. Doesn’t matter if you know the guy or not. It’s a difficult scene to watch. While in reality he is fucking Beth, in his mind it seems as if he’s using her as a proxy for Catherine. It’s clear this is very aggressive, even for Nick.

This scene is the first time we see Tripplehorn naked in the film, and immediately one can discount the ending the filmmakers are trying to put over on us. Not to be prurient, but check out Tripplehorn’s tits, check out the coloring of her nipples. This is so clearly NOT the naked woman on top of Johnny Boz in the opening murder scene. But in a neat trick, I don’t think it is Sharon Stone in that opening scene either. When we see Catherine naked later, she has weird tits, almost like a bad boob job, and the tits on the girl in the opening don’t have that shape. Nice misdirection from Verhoeven, et al.

One more thing about Beth’s apartment. Back to the multiple layers. Look out her window, in the background, you can see the building across the way, and inside is a woman teaching some sort of fitness class. It is AMAZING! To think to do this and then actually spend the time and the money to make it happen. Wild. Seems like such a little thing, but to me it’s everything I go to the movies for, namely, a thoughtful filmmaker who creates a real world, with real people in that real world, even if they have nothing to do with our characters.

If there just happened to be a fitness class across the way and the filmmakers just went with it, please don’t tell me. Let a man dream…

After they have sex, Beth reveals to Nick that she went to college with Catherine, and had some classes with her. This is the first hint of the endgame involved, namely, Catherine framing Beth for her crimes. And yes, it is my opinion that Catherine is the real killer and she frames Beth to take the fall. But we’ll get there in a bit.

Nick shows up to work the next day, smoking a cigarette and looking like hammered dog shit. But I love the wardrobe they gave Nick for this film. Ellen Mirojnick, a fantastic costume designer only rivalled by Marilyn Vance-Straker as the costumer of my youthful movie watching, did a fantastic job with the wardrobe here, both for Catherine and Nick, but Nick’s takes the cake.

From his dope suits and flowy trench coats to his off-duty attire of a V-neck sweater, jeans, and navy flight jacket, I don’t think Douglas has looked or dressed better.

In fact, that flight jacket outfit with the jeans and V-neck (sans T-shirt) was incredibly aspirational for me in high school. Me and my buddy would try to copy that outfit, with varying degrees of success. And you know what? To this day that outfit is fucking iconic. Aside from the fit of Douglas’s jeans, it’s an outfit you could see being worn today by dudes who know how to dress. Nick may be a scumbag and a rapist and a killer, but damn does the dude know how to dress!

Nick is tasked with following Catherine, see where it leads. Which brings us to a great little car “chase” as Nick attempts to keep up with Catherine’s Ferrari in his beat up unmarked cop car as they drive down a mountainous road full of twists and blind curves.

Catherine is a psycho who keeps going around other cars despite the single lane in either direction. Even more psycho Nick does the same, and nearly gets demolished by a fucking bus!

Love how Verhoeven shoots this sequence, with the camera really low to the road as the cars zoom up into CU and then hang back. Most car chases in movies suck ass. Not here. This one gets you on the edge of your seat. When Nick sees that bus bearing down on him, damn! Dude is hungover and smoking again, he really does not need this shit today!

It turns out Catherine knows way more about Nick than she could have ever gleaned from some newspaper article, and Nick grows suspicious. He’s convinced someone gave or sold Catherine his “file” from all his psych evaluations. At first he blames Beth, then turns his attention to Nilsen, who he attacks in front of a ton of other cops, right before Nilsen himself ends up dead with a bullet through his head. Obviously, Nick is a suspect, so he is relieved of duty temporarily.

This newfound freedom leads Nick to a nightclub Catherine told him about, and all their teasing and going back and forth finally culminates on the dance floor with Nick grabbing Catherine by her ass and pulling her close to him. It’s a thrilling moment, with a sick club track backing it (lo those digital free days where one could not just Shazam a song one hears. You know how long it took me and my buddy to find this track? For some reason, we could not figure it out from the end credits, but some chick at NYU we were friends with actually gave us a copy. So hot, though for the life of me I cannot remember the title or the artist…).

Great shit.

Their big “sex scene” follows, and it does not disappoint. Most sex scenes leave you cold and flaccid, but this one actually gives you a chubby. One detail I love is how Nick eats Catherine’s pussy. You usually don’t see that in film. You’ll see a chick go down on a dude, but when do you see a guy just munching away on some bird’s carpet? Small detail, but made the sex scene way more realistic than it would normally be, which is not realistic at all.

In a nice parallel with a similarly themed film, Sea of Love, Nick is nervous his dick is leading him to be the murderer’s latest victim, as Catherine breaks out a white cloth and ties Nick’s hands to the bedpost as she starts riding him harder and harder, just like in the opening. And the music builds to a crescendo, just like in the opening. And the blonde riding on top arches back like she is reaching for something, just like in the opening.

Then she inexplicably swings her arms forward and collapses on Nick, but she doesn’t stab him, she merely unties his hands as they nestle in their post climax haze. I mean, the flick is only half over at this point, are they really going to show their cards this early? I don’t think so. But still effective as the narrative is so well done that you can’t help but get tense at this moment.

Once Catherine has Nick where she wants him, the plot developments kick into overdrive, and the film gets more and more ridiculous while still being insanely entertaining. As mentioned earlier, the leads start to point to Beth as the killer, as the more her backstory is revealed the more we see shady shit in her past that is unexplainable.

Framed one way, could be innocent, framed another, and she’s guilty as hell. They even “foreshadow” this direction the plot takes when Nick meets with Beth and some of the department psychologists to discuss the traits of the possible killer early in the film. First, they discuss how it could be Catherine writing the book to serve as an alibi. But when Nick asks the psychologists what if it’s not the author, but a reader of the book, they cut to Beth giving him a devious side eye, and the music strikes a quick, ominous chord. Nice misdirection that most viewers wouldn’t even pick up on on first viewing.

But Beth being the murderer doesn’t really make sense when you think about it. Earlier, Nick saw Catherine’s latest novel being printed out, where he read about the cop character’s partner being murdered in an elevator.

And what happens a few scenes later, his partner, Gus, gets brutally murdered with an ice pick in an elevator. How the fuck would Beth know about this before the fucking thing is even published? She wouldn’t. Same as how her tits and the coloring of her areolas don’t match the killer in the beginning.

Catherine’s plan works. Nick finds Gus’s dead body in the elevator, Beth suddenly appears in the hallway, won’t take her hand from her pocket despite Nick’s screaming to do it while pointing a gun at her, and Nick blows her away, thinking she had a gun.

Back in the day, my buddy who looks like Justin Baldoni did a great impression of Nick’s anguish upon pulling the Bart Simpson keychain from Beth’s pocket. The cops find an ice pick and a blonde wig on the stairway by the elevator, and just like that, Beth is blamed for all the recent murders, including Nilsen’s.

It’s all a little too neat, too easy, too perfect. All the pieces fit nicely together and the cops close the case. Nick, for his part, still seems unsure, just can’t understand how Beth could fool him for so long, but the evidence is the evidence and he goes along with the others, mainly because of his newfound love/lust for Catherine. He desperately wants to believe she is not the killer.

In their final scene, Nick and Catherine have sex again, and again she is on top riding him, and again she reaches back as they near climax, and again she flops forward on to Nick, but does not kill him.

Fool me once, shame on… shame on you. Fool me twice… not gonna get fooled again. Know what I mean?

But this IS the ending. Unlike the sex scene in the middle of the film, it is quite feasible she kills him here. But she doesn’t. Proving she’s not the killer. Or does it? As they lie there, Catherine’s arm is draped over the side of the bed, is she reaching for something? Nick is not sure as she slowly brings her arm up, but her hand is empty, and she merely grabs him, and they start fucking again. But the camera lingers and drifts down to the floor beside the bed, and what do we find sitting there on the floor?

A motherfucking ice pick!

Totally ridiculous… and totally amazing! Love this kind of cheesy, adult erotic thriller. Just look at the kind of Hollywood heavyweights that would make a film like this back then. The pedigree is off the charts. All aspects of this film are next level, from the writing to the direction to the acting to the photography to the music to the wardrobe to the effects, this is Hollywood at its best, doing what it does best.

Here’s hoping we get to experience that Hollywood again before we all shuffle off this mortal coil, but preferably not with an ice pick sticking out of our necks!

The One Sheet

Full disclosure: I had this poster on my wall for YEARS after this film. I love this poster, unabashedly. Great photo of our two leads, Stone’s nails digging into Douglas’s back, with some solid copy and nice font for the title. Amazing that Douglas gets sole billing. Wonder if that was contractual or because Sharon Stone wasn’t yet SHARON FUCKING STONE!

There’s other versions of this poster, but they all follow the same template. Why mess with a good thing?

And that does it for the 1ST 5 Minutes of Paul Verhoeven’s third great film in a row, Basic Instinct. Much like Robocop and Total Recall, we get a 1ST 5 that serves as a wonderful appetizer for the amazing film to follow. You could call it a perfect example of a cat and mouse type crime thriller, but this isn’t cat and mouse when it comes to Catherine Tramell. More like lioness and mouse, because all the cops with their combined IQ are no match for Catherine’s brilliance. Or beauty.

Can you imagine actually being offended by this movie, either in 1992 or now? Good lord, people are absolute fucking retards. Truly. Let’s pour one out and have a moment of silence for all the activists and shitheads who spent their energy and time boycotting this pulpy, genre entertainment.

Seriously, who the fuck watches this movie and honestly thinks it’s some broadside attack on gay people? The moron protesters actually thought people would watch this and come tearing out of the theater with pitchforks and torches looking to string up… bi-sexuals?! BI-SEXUALS?

Hilarious. They’re not even really gay, especially if it is a broad who’s bi.

It’s all so tiresome. And they just don’t stop, moving from one target to another in their quixotic quest to enforce some twisted notion of morality.

It’s a fucking movie, you godless heathens.

Relax and eat some fucking popcorn.

See you in two…