Basic Instinct

Psychological murder mystery thriller set in San Francisco, California.  Basic Instinct crosses sexual boundaries in film making in that it is extremely explicit.  Michael Douglas plays Nick Curran, the Detective who is investigating the murder of a rock star with an ice pick.  Sharon Stone is Catherine Tramell, she is a murder mystery writer who has written about a murder with an ice pick and therefore she has given herself the perfect alibi – “I’d have to be pretty stupid to write a book about killing and then kill him the way I described in my book. I’d be announcing myself as the killer. I’m not stupid. “.  However, she was the last person known to be in contact with the victim.    Jeanne Tripplehorn also stars as the Psychologist who is helping Nick to overcome his alcoholism and itchy trigger finger.

The music is haunting and the winding roads round the coast to Catherine’s beach house make your spine go all tingly.  The chemistry between Douglas and Stone in this movie is electric and charged with sexual tension.  It is gripping in suspense and the script is exceptionally strong.  Every time Stone appears on the set you fall for her charm.  You get sucked in.  You will try to find the clues but the movie is too clever for you!
IMDB Basic Instinct

Trailer

Rating 8.6/10

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The Usual Suspects

Film was made in 1995.

This is actually a line up of Stephen Baldwin (Alec Baldwin’s brother), Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro (License to Kill, Bond film), Kevin Pollak and Kevin Spacey – see picture below.  These are the usual suspects because they are all hardened and notorious criminals except for Spacey who plays Roger “Verbal” Kint, a cripple who has defrauded people.  Fortunately by happy co-incidence in bringing these fellas together in a fairly bad mood means that they are ready for some pay back time on the police.  They plan and execute a crime from their shared cell while awaiting to be charged which sets the ball rolling for all of them to part-take in another crime but this one will be one of certain death with huge money stakes involved and they have no choice but to agree.   This tale is rather chilling in that the man behind everything is somebody akin to the devil.

To sum up, the actual hopping around from past to present disturbs your concentration of the facts from the very beginning.  I was always asking myself are we in the now?  The very first scene is the most important part of the film so pay attention to get a head start.  A clever plot and some extremely good acting, particularly Kevin Spacey who won an Oscar.  The mood was just right.  We enjoyed this film.
IMDB The Usual Suspects

Trailer

Rating 8.5/10

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