Instinct

Anthony Hopkins. Cuba Gooding, Jr. What can go wrong?

I’ve been waiting to see this movie since I first started seeing previews a few months ago. I love seeing Hopkins in roles like this. Roles where he gets to stretch his acting legs AND kick butt.

Instinct is about Dr. Ethan Powell (Hopkins). He was lost in Africa about five years before and, when he was found with a family of gorillas, he killed two men and injured three. He hasn’t spoken since. Now it’s up to Theo Caulder (Cuba) to break through to him. Why did he do it? Why did he leave his family behind? What did he see with the gorillas?

The main problem with this movie is that I’ve seen Silence Of The Lambs. It’s almost an exact copy. Cuba plays the Clarice Starling character all the way down to the fact that he’s a psychologist in training. Why did he get this job? Good question. We had the same question about Clarice. Luckily, they explain why in both movies. You see, Clarice was kind of a last resort. They needed someone that Lecter wouldn’t suspect. Not the most plausible explanation, but it works. Caulder, on the other hand, wants to write…a…book. Oh. Ok. Sure. So Donald Sutherland (in almost the same role he had in A Time To Kill) sends him to the asylum at Harmony Bay (nice name for a prison), I guess because he wants to read the book.

Then, of course, Lecter, I mean Powell, gets into Caulder’s head without him really knowing it. The problem here is that we don’t get to know anything about Caulder. He has no family, no friends, no life. All we know is that he is after Powell’s daughter (Maura Tierney–Liar, Liar and Primary Colors), but he won’t admit it to anyone. I don’t blame him. I know I’d be after her.

Hopkins is amazing. There’s no other way for him to be. I’ve never seen him put in a bad performance. He’s incapable. He’s menacing. He’s caring. He’s mean. He’s everything you could want in an evil-hero.

Cuba, on the other hand… I like the guy. I think he’s a good actor. He was, for the most part, good in this one. He just had a problem with the emotions. He went WAY overboard sometimes. Especially at the end. He’s standing on top of the bleachers in the asylum talking to a non-responsive Powell. After about a minute of babbling he starts blubbering. We really had no indication that these two guys had gotten this close. They learned a little about themselves through their sessions, but they weren’t really buds. Now Caulder is suddenly crying over him. He was asking Powell to open up to him again. What was really going on we Cuba was begging Hopkins. “Please help me get another Oscar, Anthony! I’ve got an empty space on my mantel.”

Then there’s the fact that he does a Tom Cruise stance when he goes to visit Powell’s daughter. She answers the door and there he is, with his arm up and his head hanging against it. Hey, Cuba! Don’t learn from Tom! He can’t act!

Another problem I had was the fact that the message seemed to be a little pushed. It’s always best when the message isn’t really mentioned in the dialogue. It’s just there and we can figure it out for ourselves. Powell has to tell us this one. He is seen drawing a map of the world in his cell complete with the migration of man throughout the ages. He spells it all out to us. “The Takers” (people who think they have control) have been pushing the more natural world too far. We have been paying too much attention to our careers and our possessions and too little attention to what’s inside of us. We don’t need control because we never had it. Apparently we should all live with monkeys for a while. That seems to be the only solution. They don’t give us another one. It’s not always bad to not give a solution in a case like this. Let us come up with our own. That’s fine, but at least give us a message with a solution. They even tell us that there isn’t one. Ok, I guess it’s hopeless. Nevermind.

Then they try to be too many things at once. This movie is Silence Of The Lambs meets 12 Monkeys meets The Shawshank Redemption meets One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. We’ve discussed SOTL. 12 Monkeys/Cuckoo’s Nest is pretty obvious. It’s in an asylum and they try to make everyone into different characters that we care about. And then Caulder tries to reform the prison and make it a nice place to live. There’s even a shot of him standing in the rain with his arms up in the air. Wow. Could they rip off a little more?

There were some really good moments in the movie. Most of them were between Cuba and Anthony. The psych sessions near the beginning were great. There were some funny moments in the asylum. There are two characters that reminded my friend and I of characters from a Disney movie. The best friends who are too stupid to know that they’re stupid.

My friend liked this movie a lot. I thought it was ok. Nothing special at all. The best thing about it is Hopkins. If you’re a fan or an actor, go see it in a matinee or wait for video. Either way, you should see it for him. Otherwise, go rent one of the movies that it rips off. They’re all much better.