Tag: Jeanne Tripplehorn

Basic Instinct (1992)

A sensationalist hit, this Trashy Hitchcock-pastiches looks very pleased with its own naughtiness today

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Cast: Michael Douglas (Detective Nick Curran), Sharon Stone (Catherine Tramell), George Dzundza (Detective Gus Moran), Jeanne Tripplehorn (Dr Beth Garner), Dorothy Malone (Hazel Dobkins), Denis Arndt (Lt Philip Walker), Leilani Sarelle (Roxy Hardy), Bruce A Young (Detective Sam Andrews), Chelcie Ross (Captain Talcott), Wayne Knight (Assistant DA John Correli), Stephen Tobolowsky (Dr Lamott)

If there is one thing Basic Instinct proves for sure, it’s that Paul Verhoeven is a very naughty boy. A sensational smash hit in 1992, largely because of the instant iconic status of that scene (you know which one), Basic Instinct remixes Hitchcock (especially Vertigo and Psycho) with lashings of explicit sex and violence, a touch of The Silence of the Lambs and a dollop of Fatal Attraction. It’s a deeply silly, dirty film that was a sort of Fifty Shades of its day: vanilla porn for those who feel too self-conscious to actually go and watch a real one.

Catherine Trammell (Sharon Stone) is number one suspect for the murder of her boyfriend (or rather as she describes him “the guy I was fucking”) for two reasons: one she published a novel a few weeks earlier where she explicitly described the crime in detail and two she’s an obvious Hannibal Lector-ish genius psychopath. Doesn’t stop weak-willed detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) from becoming obsessed with her, sucked into a wild sexual affair. But is Catherine a misunderstood unlucky victim, or the genius manipulator her old college rival Dr Beth Garner (Jeanne Tripplehorn) – also Nick’s on-and-off girlfriend and psychiatrist – says she is?

Basic Instinct was the most expensive script ever sold, earning Joe Eszterhas $3million for what he claimed was fourteen days’ work. And you can see why – it’s got everything audiences could need for an addictive, trashy bit of fun. A femme fatale who is also a genius psychopath! A handsome macho cop! Brutal murders! A puzzle interesting enough to keep ticking over but obvious enough that you don’t need to think about it too much! And of course, lots and lots and lots of sex! And then even more sex! No wonder people saw dollar bills – at the very worst they had a chance at a so-bad-its-good box office smash.

But the good stuff. Basic Instinct’s comic-book Hitchcock pastiche actually works rather well, helped enormously by a marvellous Oscar-nominated score by Jerry Goldsmith, which brilliantly channels Bernard Herrmann’s luscious Vertigo strings. It’s no exaggeration to say Goldsmith’s score dramatically improves the film, from adding tension to a drawn-out elevator trip to adding a film noir lyricism to Catherine and Nick’s rather forced sexualised banter. Verhoeven also really knows his business: the film’s famous interrogation scene works as well as it does through his skilful editing between wide angles, close-ups and POV shots, aided by the striking uplighting from cinematographer Jan de Bont.

That scene – and the film – also works because of Sharon Stone. Taking on a role turned down by almost every single woman in Hollywood, Stone seizes hold of a part she knew was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Nick may be the lead – and Douglas, in the middle of his run of weak modern American men bewitched by strong women, may have been the high-paid star ($14 million to Stone’s $550k) – but both knew this was Catherine’s movie. Stone plays the role with a playful, sensual confidence and arrogant defiance, knowing full well she can seduce anyone. Despite the clunky dialogue, she makes Catherine sexy, smart and just about vulnerable enough to make some viewers doubt whether she’s the killer or not. (I mean she blatantly is, the film doesn’t really try and pretend otherwise. Most of the fun is seeing how shamelessly she can parade it and still get away with it.)

Away from that though, Basic Instinct is a terribly silly film, a well-made pandering to our lowest desires. Opening with an extremely graphic post-coitus stabbing frenzy (with blood spray everywhere and a nose skewered by an ice pick) – it then teases us three times that it will repeat this again after nearly every explosive session of rumpy-pumpy. Ah yes, the rumpy-pumpy. Basic Instinct slows at the half-way mark for an almost five-minute extended multi-angled, orgasm packed bit of horizontal jogging that Nick then rather pathetically spends most of the rest film bragging about being “the fuck of the century”.

But then Nick is a pathetic figure. Somehow keeping hold of his badge, despite gunning down two tourists while high on cocaine, he’s got such an addictive personality he makes Lloyd Bridges’ (“I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue!”) air traffic controller in Airplane look like a model of restraint. After internal affairs-mandated therapy (how’s that for a slap on the wrist) – hilariously compromised by Jeanne Tripplehorn’s Dr Garner crossing all ethical lines by repeatedly shagging him – Nick has proudly quit drugs, drink, smoking, and shooting before asking questions. Needless to say, under Catherine’s influence, he embraces all of these again, all while still managing to be the sort of middle-aged loser who wears a pullover to nightclub.

Eszterhas’ script mixes awful “tough” dialogue (“Looks like he got off before he got offed” Nick’s partner jokes over a victim) with clumsy psychological insight (my favourite is Tobolowsky’s consultant who confidently states two options: Trammel either did or didn’t do it – inevitably this childishly empty insight is met with the manly ‘tecs muttering “In English Doc!”) and blunt statements of the obvious (“She’s brilliant! And Evil!” screams poor Tripplehorn). The flirty banter is largely sold by Sharon Stone’s confidence, since the lines (“I’m not wearing underwear”) are hardly Double Indemnity. The film’s mystery is so irrelevant to its appeal (and, in many ways, plot), it merrily gets bogged down in several off-screen murders of characters we’ve never met.

Today Basic Instinct feels like a bizarre museum piece. George Dzundza’s sidekick cop is intended as comic-relief but comes across like a little ball of toxic masculinity. An early sex scene between Nick and Beth is pretty much impossible to watch today without thinking “yeah that’s rape”. The film uses bisexuality (though we only, of course, get girl-on-girl – Douglas made it clear he ain’t gonna kiss no man) as raw titillation, an entre for the soft porn of Douglas and Stone noisily going at it for about 10% of the film’s run time. Even the famous scene is uncomfortable to watch, since Stone has since made it clear she didn’t consent to that shot.

Basic Instinct is a deeply silly piece of trash. But then that was its appeal back then – no one felt they were actually watching Hitchcock when they sat down to this rip-off of the master (in fact Basic Instinct makes you feel it’s probably a relief the production code meant Hitchcock couldn’t give into his Verhoevenish instincts). Today most like to think of it as a sort of well played card trick. However, it’s hard not to feel a bit for Sharon Stone to whom it became a millstone (which she eventually exploited for a terrible belated sequel for which she pocketed $13.5million), despite being the person possibly most responsible for its success. So maybe Nick won in the end after all.

WaterWorld (1995)

As the waters rise, the world sinks down – and WaterWorld went down with it in the very average mega-budget sci-fi

Director: Kevin Reynolds

Cast: Kevin Costner (The Mariner), Dennis Hopper (The Deacon), Jeanne Tripplehorn (Helen), Tina Marjorino (Enola), Michael Jeter (Old Gregor), Gerard Murphy (The Nord), RD Call (Atoll Enforcer), Kim Coates (Drifter #2), John Fleck (Smoker Doctor), Robert Joy (Smoker Ledger), Jack Black (Smoker Pilot), Zakes Mokae (Priam)

In 1995 they called it “Kevin’s Gate”. Costner cashed all – and I pretty much mean all – his superstar chips to make Waterworld, a sort of water-logged Mad Max crossed with a Leone Western, starring himself as a nameless mutant with gills behind his ears. You needed to be the Biggest Box Office Star in the World to get that one up and running. But then Costner’s last “all-in” bet had been Dances with Wolves – and that won seven Oscars. What could do wrong?

Waterworld has been pretty much defined – then and now – as the (at the time) most expensive film ever made, which went on to be a damp squip, a box-office stinker. It’s not that: it’s a solid, entertaining-enough B-movie with some neat Dystopian ideas. In 2500, the world has been completely flooded after the polar ice caps melted. Mankind exists in rusted boats and small floating camps on the ocean. Dry land is a myth and actual soil is worth a fortune. Costner’s Mariner ends up protecting Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and her adopted daughter Enola (Tina Marjorino), as Enola has (handily tattooed on her back) a map to the last piece of dryland left in the world. But Enola’s map is hunted by the Smokers, and their maniacal leader The Deacon (Dennis Hopper), who want to claim Dry Land for themselves.

Waterworld largely lives on as a hugely successful stunt show at Universal Studios (I’ve seen it and it is amazing – all the exciting bits of the film, done in about fifteen minutes) that has been running non-stop since 1995 (other shows, based on more successful movies, have long since disappeared). It focuses on all the stuff that’s good about the film. Kevin Reynolds’ can shoot the heck out of action scenes and professional stuntmen really know their business. The best sequences in Waterworld involve pounding action – jet ski chases, the Mariner’s transforming trimaran, jet skis flying over walls and diving under water, stunning boat chases – and they are great.

They also exploit, in their rusted crap-sack props, one of the film’s other triumphs, it’s detailed world-building design. Sure, it owes a heavy-debt to the cobbled-together semi-steam-punk of Mad Max, with rust that covers everything, adapted wet-suits and rags (augmented with various pieces of fishing equipment and light fabrics) that characters wear, the bashed out colours contrasted with the glorious blue of the water. But the film never looks anything less than an outre mad-house. Throw in James Newton Howard’s very effective score – romantic and mournful when required, but then pounding with heroic action beat – and you’ve got elements of a decent movie.

But decent is all it ever is. Because, aside from the novelty of being set on water (a hugely time- and money-consuming expense, that partly explained why the film went zillions of dollars over budget), there isn’t anything that new about the story. A gruff outsider is roped into grudgingly protecting a mother and a daughter, but then his heart-is-melted – just as the villains turn up to snatch the daughter away. The villains are cartoonish monsters (Dennis Hopper seems to be on a mission to counter the water-logged misery of most of the rest of the performers by acting as much as possible), who are either ingenious or incompetent depending on the requirements of the script. The quest for the land-of-plenty is so familiar, you could scribble it down on a postcard in advance.

The question is, why did Costner want to make this? It’s not even a part that showcases him very well. I’ve always found Costner’s mega-stardom a bit of a mystery: once he graduated from more young, naïve parts (such as in The Untouchables), action films more and more exposed his slightly blank sulkiness as an actor. Perhaps due to the pressure of Waterworld (he worked non-stop, six day weeks, mostly on or in the water, for six months), perhaps due to his inability to find any warmth in a role he clearly sees as an Eastwoodish man-with-no-name, he largely comes across as sullen and hard-to-engage with. This is double hard for a film set in a dystopian future, where we really need to understand and relate to the hero in order to get into the world.

The rest of the cast follow his lead – no one, apart from maybe Hopper, really looks like they want to be there and most of them give of a sense of suffering under the constant threat of accidentally drowning. Tripplehorn isn’t helped by playing a dull, functionary, by-the-numbers character although Marjorino does get to have a bit of spark as plucky Enola. None of the characters step out of the formulaic surroundings of the film they have been trapped in.

You can have a bit of fun with the film’s wonky science. The Mariner is introduced pissing into a bucket and converting the piss into drinking water: cool character establishing moment, but since the salt quota of piss is higher than sea water, why not just convert the sea water? (I’m staggered at the idea that, in 500 years, no one has discovered a way to make sea water drinkable). If the polar ice caps melted, they would not flood the world as much as this. Would an oil tanker and fleet of jet skis really have managed to eek out the 235k cubic metres of oil it carried for 500 years? (How do they even convert it into petrol?) Where are all the fish? Why is the Mariner the only one with deep sea diving equipment – especially when he has flipping gills and doesn’t need it?

But hey, it’s only a movie. Waterworld eventually became profitable: but not till after it had cemented itself in the public perception as an uber-stinker. Really, it’s not that different from Avatar in its functional story, it just made a worse job of selling its big-budget effects as must-see moments. Costner’s alleged megalomania on set didn’t help (re-writing scenes, ordering special effects cover his receding hairline, falling out with Reynolds during editing – so much so Reynolds walked out), but really Waterworld isn’t terrible, just a huge lump of soggy okay. But that Universal Stunt Show? It’s the bee’s knees.

The Firm (1993)

“He can’t handle the truth!” Tom Cruise takes on The Firm. We lose.

Director: Sydney Pollack

Cast: Tom Cruise (Mitch McDeere), Jeanne Tripplehorn (Abby McDeere), Gene Hackman (Avery Tolar), Holly Hunter (Tammy Hemphill), Ed Harris (FBI Agent Wayne Tarrance), Hal Holbrook (Oliver Lambert), Jerry Hardin (Royce McKnight), David Strathairn (Ray McDeere), Terry Kinney (Lamar Quinn), Wilfrid Brimley (Bill DeVasher), Gary Busey (Eddie Lomax), Paul Sorvino (Tony Morolto)

Mitch McDeere (Tom Cruise) is graduating top-of-his-class from Harvard Law. A plucky kid who’s worked for everything he has – and who wants to provide the best he can for wife Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn) – Mitch has lots of offers but is seduced by a perk-filled offer from a law firm in Memphis. Everything goes wonderfully at first. But then associates at the firm start to die under suspicious circumstances and Mitch discovers no-one everleaves the firm except in a wooden box. Maybe all that off-shore tax-dodging isn’t quite as innocent as it seems – and those big-city clients with Italian-sounding names aren’t so friendly after all…

Adapted from a best-selling novel by John Grisham at the height of his airport-novel flogging days, The Firm is bought to the screen by Sydney Pollack. And what a complete dog’s dinner he makes of it. The Firm is a dreadful film: long, slow and dull with a plot that stretches right through elaborate and comes out the other side as confusing. By the time Mitch is tearing through Memphis, briefcase flapping behind him, you’ll have long-since ceased caring about anything involved in the film at all. Because for a film of such great length, very little seems to happen in it – and what little does happen is wrapped up in a mixture of legalese and curiously flat chase sequences.

Cruise plays Mitch at his most gung-ho, cocky, shit-eating grinnish. He’s preppy, super-smart, arrogant but also loyal, brave and principled. Aside from a brief temptation by money – and that because he wants the best for his family! – and of course a dalliance with a honey-trap on a beach (but it was a set-up, so not his fault!), he’s practically perfect in every way. He’s even a decent athlete, playfully taking part in back-flipping competitions with a break-dancing pre-teen busker (one of the most clumsy and bizarre introductions of a Chekov’s skill in the movies).

To put it bluntly, Mitch is an irritating character and watching him (very slowly) decide to do the right thing doesn’t make gripping viewing. Around him a host of experienced character actors do their thing, none of them stretching themselves. Tripplehorn does her best with the thankless part of “wife”, though she does at least get to do something a little proactive at the end. Hackman grins and coasts as Cruise’s mentor with the lost conscience. Hunter pouts and wisecracks (Oscar-nominated) as Grisham’s twist on an Eve-Ardenish secretary. Holbrook and Brimley scowl behind smiles as high-ups at the Firm. Harris shouts a lot as a permanently angry FBI agent with a heart of gold. Sorvino breaks out his Mob Boss 101.

Pollack marshals all these forces together with minimal effort and then ticks the boxes of all Grisham-cliches. The only thing missing are some courtroom dynamics, but we get the next best thing with wee-Tommy playing the FBI, the Mafia and the Firm off against each other in a desperate attempt to stay one step ahead of the game. I can’t stress enough how turgid and dull this film is. However scintillating you feel the set-up you might be, as the film clocks into the second hour (with 30 minutes still to go), you’ll be amazed how little sense of peril or threat there is.

There is nothing sharp, pointed or pacey about this film. “It has to happen fast” Tom announces at one point, as he kicks his impenetrable plan into gear. “Good luck in this film” my wife commented. She’s spot-on. Pollack fails to bring any sense of pace or peril to the film. For all we are repeatedly told Cruise’s life is at risk, it never really feels like it.

A big part of this massive failure is the terrible musical score that covers every single second of the film. Provided by an Oscar-nominated Dave Grusin (beating out Michael Nyman’s score for The Piano from even being nominated, one of the most inexplicable oversights at the Oscars from the 90s), every single second of the film is overlaid with a plinky-plonky piano score that would not sound out of place in a second-rate jazz bar or a hotel lift. Rather than bring you to edge of your seat, the score actually makes you feel like you should be resting back in it with a large cocktail in hand and a fuzzy sense of upcoming sleepiness clouding your brain. Which to be honest might work: pissed and half-asleep is probably the only way to get anything from the movie.