Instinct [Region 2] | ![Instinct [Region 2]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41BCQ87WYSL._SL500_.jpg) | Director: Jon Turteltaub
Actors: Anthony Hopkins, Cuba Gooding Jr., Donald Sutherland, Maura Tierney, George Dzundza
Category: DVD
This item is no longer available
Rating:  110 reviews
Format: PAL
Languages: German (Original Language), English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Italian (Original Language), English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired), German (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired), German (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Italian (Subtitled), Dutch (Subtitled), Croatian (Subtitled), Polish (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 2
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
EAN: 7321922346414
ASIN: B00004T8BN
Theatrical Release Date: June 4, 1999
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Amazon.com
Anthony Hopkins is a brilliant actor; Cuba Gooding Jr. is a talented guy with a lot of charm. Both have recently won Oscars (Best Actor for The Silence of the Lambs and Best Supporting Actor for Jerry Maguire, respectively); neither can make Instinct compelling. Hopkins plays a brilliant anthropologist studying gorillas who entered into their world, becoming part of their family, and who killed two park rangers in the gorillas' habitat. Gooding plays a brilliant young psychiatrist who's supposed to evaluate Hopkins and determine whether he's fit to stand trial. Hopkins, along with a number of other psychotics, is being held at a prison, which serves to illustrate the movie's themes about control and freedom. It's not so much that the ideas themselves are hokum--nature versus civilization is always a rich topic--it's that Instinct boils them down to inane sound bites. Psychology is reduced to a game in which the psychiatrist's job is to trick the patient into believing the correct thing or revealing the key that will solve the puzzle. There's not a credible moment in the whole movie, despite the presence of a good cast, including Donald Sutherland (M*A*S*H, Klute, Without Limits, and many, many others) and Maura Tierney (TV's Newsradio). --Bret Fetzer
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 110
 Instinct February 6, 2010
Arnita D. Brown (USA)
Nearly two years after having gone amiss in Africa, renowned anthropologist Dr. Ethan Powell is caught committing a crime and subsequently imprisoned in a Florida mental institution, where aspiring psychiatrist Dr. Theo Calder takes over his important case. Dr. Powell, who has been with a group of gorillas during all that time, is not talking at all and seems to be living in a dreamworld. Very slowly, Dr. Calder manages to reach Ethan Powell and starts finding out why Ethan killed two of the poachers. Yet Theo's case is not just about why the murders have happened, but also about how Dr. Powell became the being he is in the first place. With Ethan's silence broken, Theo is introduced into a world beyond common human comprehension: The true nature of being. He learns that mankind's control of everything is a mere illusion and that the true values of existence can't be found so easily. Ethan changes Theo's view of things forever. The strengths in this movie are numerous but it starts with the performances. Hopkins is quietly brilliant as the emotionally traumatized and scarred former anthropologist. You can feel his pain even before he tells what it is that is eating away inside of him. Cuba Gooding is great as the doctor that goes on a journey with Ethan Powell. I really enjoyed this movie. It will take away your illusions. Highly recommended.
Amazing movie! January 26, 2010
Sara Schofield
Based loosely on the book Ismael by Daniel Quin, this is one of my favorite movies, well done, thought provoking and meaning full. Both Anthony Hoppkins and Cuba Gooding Jr. are fantastic. I highly recommend it if you are looking for something more than just good entertainment, this movie has a message, and if you haven't read Ismael, read that too!
 Intriguing yet non life changing. September 13, 2009
Dave
I gave it the half-way mark because that it exactly what it is, an attempt to make people feel sympathetic for an "under-manned, inferior" species of animal (picked on, and defeated). The performances are pretty well done, and the music by Danny Elfman suits it pretty well, but, definitely has the underlying theme of trying to make you (yes, I'll say it again) empathize for the gorillas and/or way of life the character of Anthony Hopkins has chosen. However most of the movie follows/tries to cash in on the areas that most of the human race just doesn't care to, or won't, change. The movie will definitely open you up to a new way of thinking about how other species of animals are taken advantage of, yet however, as a person try to capitalize on the thought that you think you have some "magical connection" to them by using much introspective thinking and rebelling if you will of the standard movie cliches. It's a movie at least worth seeing once because maybe it will wake up that part of you that sees things differently and maybe feel more closely related as you should to everything else, but I think just as many people will see it as the attempt to grab you on the exact theme it tries to portray, the inherent fact that people think they should feel bad about things being treated worse than they are, which seems to validate their own actions (even though nobody acts upon them). Don't get me wrong, I am no different however, I've just realized it. Do not think it is all a terrible thing though, watch the movie and honestly try to decide for yourself I'm just saying rent versus buy maybe you want to rent it first.
instinct September 4, 2009
Peter F. Donnelly (delaware, usa)
The subject matter, the slaughter of gorillas, is very current, and Anthony, Cuba, and Donald are my favourite actors. A great movie.I loved it.
Conviction and Confinement. August 10, 2008
Betty Burks (Knoxville, TN)
This account of a wild and wooly Anthony Hopkins as a killer par excellence who was rescued from his prison in a jungle somewhere and then confined illegally in the U. S. He had long white hair, strength of an ape (mountain gorillas), and look like Hemingway in 1954. Like the animals he studied so dilligently, he had the instinct to fight for his survival. Dr. Calvin writes about the marvelous ability of humans to think and choose to make decisions, solve problems, forecast the future and even create ethics, all using this mental Darwinism.
In the confinement in America, he refused to speak or socialize with the other prisoners, all of whom had mental problems. The jail was full of psychotics and other mental criminals, caged like an animal and abused by the guards. The cruelty in the guards' behavior caused a riot. Ethan kept remembering base camp and what happened there, and reflected on his success and failure to protect the apes. When he decided to trust the doctor, he asked him "Are you free?" He apparently he trusted him because he looked like the apes in the jungle. He needed someone to listen about the murders. "I used to be you; see what I have become."
What have you lost when someone else takes over control? It takes a lot of confidence. Now he has an opportunity to better himself by appearing in court. Was it a Good Conviction like Lewis Weinstein's account in the book of the same name? He had to hold on to show where the violence came from, killing the apes. and acted like a mad man. Violence can be provoked. Funny how things can change overnight. Loving, petting, kissing, holding hands -- you put trust in a person who was not in control. All was lost, taken away by force. "You taught me how to live."
Ethan regressed after the guard's attack. It is hard to see a grown man cry. Failure makes anyone cry, even a woman. He thanked the young doc for sharing this journey with him, your friend; then he returned to the wild. This book tells how chimpanzies can't talk and why we forget our dreams.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 110
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