Basic Instinct is a very stylish murder mystery, filled with attractive people and ambiguous clues that keep the viewer guessing until the final scene.

As has been mentioned, there are echoes of Hitchcock's Vertigo throughout the film, including the San Francisco setting, the attire of the female lead (Catherine, played by Sharon Stone),the styling of her hair, the background music, the shots of interior stairwells, and the lead character (Nick, played by Michael Douglas) following Catherine around the city in his car. The apartment of Beth (played by Jeanne Trippehorn) might also remind one of Rear Window.

Many of the characters have emotional/psychological problems like addiction, dependency, or worse. This makes it more difficult for the viewer to determine the motivations of the suspects. Nick--the filter through which we see all evidence--is flawed. We learn that he has had problems with cocaine and alcohol. Sexually, he is ripe for exploration and, maybe, manipulation.

The film walks a fine line between revelation and obfuscation. In the course of the story, murders are committed, and we are given just enough information to pull us deeper into the mystery, but not enough to reveal the truth. Even the ending leaves the future ambiguous.

This is an excellent mystery for the nineties. The acting is excellent, especially that of Sharon Stone who plays the rabbit we gladly follow down the rabbit hole where the rules of the game are confusing and constantly changing.

"Basic Instinct" is one movie that truly blows your mind. You've probably heard about the interrogation scene, but there's of course more to the movie than that. As Det. Nick Curran, Michael Douglas seems to be channeling his character in "Fatal Attraction" somewhat, and preparing for his role in "The Game" a few years later. But it's Sharon Stone, as author Catherine Tramell, who really makes the movie what it is. Along with the interrogation scene, she's like a combination of every femme fatale throughout movie history.

But overall, I can't do this movie justice by trying to describe it. You have to see it to understand it. One of the reasons that it's so good is that you can never really tell who's on which side. As for all the sex (which probably takes up a quarter to a third of the movie)...well, that's part of what makes the movie so good. But I should remind you that this movie is very likely to completely blow you away. Also starring George Dzundza and Jeanne Tripplehorn.

Considering that Paul Verhoeven directed "Soldier of Orange" in his native Netherlands, then directed "Robocop" and "Basic Instinct" here (and even "Starship Troopers" was OK),why did he degenerate into "Hollow Man"?

Although most reviewers have concentrated on the leads, Basic Instinct has some other fine performances in it. Still Michael Douglas as the sex obsessed cop and Sharon Stone as the amoral, multi-sexual woman who seems to have murder all around her give some iconic performances.

A couple of SFPD detectives who played TV detectives, Michael Douglas in Streets Of San Francisco and George Dzundza in Law And Order, get assigned to the homicide of a former rockstar icon. The man had as the story tells us the 'coital moment of the century' before he died and as Michael Douglas finds out with Sharon Stone his prime suspect.

It's not like Douglas hasn't any issues himself, he's seeing the SFPD shrink Jeanne Tripplehorn. One of those issues apparently is professional detachment as gets involved with both Tripplehorn and Stone. Far worse with Stone as she is a suspect.

Murders in the past and murders in the present seem to pop up whenever Stone is around. She's an heiress to a fortune, a psychology major from college and licensed and an author of lurid novels. She knows how to press the buttons of both sexes and soon enough Douglas is in her world.

The only one keeping a professional detachment is Dzundza who is not thinking with his male member. Even when an Internal Affairs cop who is investigating Douglas is murdered, Dzundza sticks by his partner. See what it gets him.

In fact Dzundza and Tripplehorn don't get near enough credit for their work here. I think most know Tripplehorn as I do for playing Tom Cruise's wife in The Firm. She too is a woman with a lot of issues. As for George Dzundza as the only one in the film actually who seems to be normal, the others all seem to play off him.

Still Sharon Stone's career was launched with what she did in Basic Instinct. This woman will wind up President of the USA or on death row, no middle ground for her. And you can believe she's every man and woman's coital moment of a lifetime.

I don't know how successful or how good Basic Instinct 2 was, but seeing this has given me an incentive to see the sequel.