Instinct (1999)

reviewed by
Mikhail Iosjpe


INSTINCT
--------------
Review by Alex Ioshpe
8/10 - Alternative rating B -

To make a long story short - "Instinct" is a modern Tarzan-story with a dose of social critisism. Dr. Ethan Powell ( Anthony Hopkins ) has suddenly been found and imprisoned for killing two African guards after he disappeared two years ago.

He has not spoken a single word since he has been found and he has become distant and violent. Powell is then transferred to a special prison in the U.S, where helpless lunatics are beaten and discriminated by the prison guards.

Here is where Dr. Theo Calder ( Cuba Gooding, Jr. ) steps in. He is a young and so far successful psychiatrist whose task is to write an evaluation on Powell to determine why a brilliant scientist has suddenly become insane and isolated himself from his family and the rest of the world. Later Theo finds out that Powell has been living with wild gorillas for two years, instead of studding them and has somehow made a connection; became a member of the family. He has seen how the Africans killed the gorillas, how they pillaged and destroyed. That is why his violent behavior is to some point justified by mankind's "rape of the world". Slowly when Theo is venturing deep into Powell's mind, we get to witness his journey from the beginning. The African jungle is here displayed as a peaceful eden - a paradise slowly transformed into hell.

And here is the beautiful part of the film, it is also by the way the most serious part -

Powell dreams of a world where we kill only as much as we can eat, where we live like we have lived 10 000 years ago, in harmony with the nature instead of in "control" of it.

The script is serious, solid and well written, exploring the true nature of man, as well as our social and family mentality. The casting is likewise solid, but there are specially Hopkins'and Gooding's performances that are worth noticing. Stan Winston's computerized gorillas are incredibly realistic and Danny Elfman's score, although not great, is at times effective. So it's actually nothing bad to say about "Instinct".

However, instead of venturing deeper into the lost instincts and explore the true nature of man, Jon Turteltaub is concentrating his energy on the difficult conditions in the prison and Theo's romance with Powell's daughter (which by the way fails to capture my attention or emotions). The film's lack of focus is a bit disturbing. Another very important thing to notice is that it never answers the question: "What is it we should do?", "Should we throw our clothes off and return to the jungle, like Powell?" or should we all become vegetarians? My point is that "Instinct" showed us how we are like from nature's point of view - greedy, violent and stupid, sawing the branch we're sitting on. But it is never said what we should do about it. The important questions are asked, but never answered. Some of you may say that everyone should figure this one out for themselves. Maybe so, but I feel that after asking these important questions it's equally important to answer them. It's like the director was not sure himself and found the easy way out. However the film's many good moments, such as Powell's explanation of control, and solid acting saves the film. It's not a bad movie and it's not a masterpiece. It will not get any important nominations at the Oscar's, but it's a well made film with a serious and important subject worth thinking and making films about.


The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews