User Reviews

I just watched the network premiere of it on CBS and was blown way by how good it was. However, I'm even more shocked by the fact that I hadn't heard of it. I went to Box Office Mojo and found out that it only made 35 million dollars. I don't understand why this film was poorly received. The performances from all four lead actors were absolutely great. Anthony Hopkins and Cuba Gooding Jr. had great chemistry with each other and I love to see another movie with them together in lead roles. Maura Tierney consistently proves what a versatile actress she is and I'm convinced that she will become an even better actress. Donald Sutherland was his usual charming self and although is screen time was limited, he made up for it with his wonderful performance. The story of the movie is about a man, Ethan Powell (Hopkins), who is brought from Africa with charges of murder after living in the rainforest with gorillas for two years and hasn't spoken a word since his capture. Gooding Jr. plays a psychiatrist, Theo Caulder, who is assigned to him, who is determined to reach out to him and figure out what happened to him. Sutherland plays Gooding Jr.'s superior while Tierney plays Hopkins daughter. There were a lot of nicest touches in this movie such as Powell realizing that the camera, not his presence, bothered the gorillas, and Powell observing that the gorillas in the zoo were different from those in the rainforest. The scene where Powell demonstrates to Caulder that he needs to break down his illusions of freedom and control was really done well. I was impressed by the fact the reason for why Powell cracked was not only because gorilla hunters viciously killed Powell's gorilla family but also because of the items he left in the forest lead the hunters to the gorillas and, therefore, felt responsible. Overall, I thought this was a terrific movie and that everyone should go see it!

The average mark given by IMBd users seems to me very logical, a good movie, with very good acting and an interesting psychological thriller, but with several superficial details that partially spoil it.

But when I went to read the reviews I saw that most of them give 10/10 which I think is nonsense. Reading most of them I realised that what people praise is the message of the movie, not the movie itself. I agree that the movie makes a very good criticism of what mankind is, and how he treats the planet and himself. But imho the message is given in a too superficial and sometimes disappointing manner. First of all, how can Hopkins start talking so easily? just mention his daughter once or twice and voilá, he is talking. I expected to take some effort and intelligence for the psychologist to make him talk. Secondly, the rebellion in the mental health prison, when they start breaking the cards, the scene is so simple and stereotyped that looks like made for kids. Third, the moment when they kill the gorillas with the baby gorilla in hands of Hopkins, for me this was a cheap easy tear trick. And finally, all the psychological evaluation is too fast, shallow, without any unexpected turns and does not look intelligent at all. A nice touch is the homage to Shawshank Redemption when he goes out of the car in the rain and extends the arms, but even this was not very carefully made with the BMW at the bottom, not poetic image at all.

Conclusion: a nice movie, good acting, deep message, but several simplistic scenes and plot deficiencies spoil it.

This movie is a heavy-handed collision of Gorillas in the Mist and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Seriously.

Somewhere in the muddle is some kind of message about man's eco-place in the natural environment. Or something like that.

We get Anthony Hopkins living among Gorillas (but he doesn't run into Sigourney Weaver, go figure) until he gets arrested and flown back to the US to face charges. An eager young med student named Cuba Gooding Jr is volunteered by Donald Sutherland to conduct a psych evaluation on Hopkins.

Well, it takes one minute for Cuba to break through the primitive wall of silence Hopkins has constructed. And before you can say Jack Nicholson, Hopkins has the assorted criminal loons on his side. Which is supposed to be all uplifting.

Skip this. Watch Cuckoo's Nest, Gorillas in the Mist and Silence of the Lambs instead.

Watching Sir Anthony Hopkins is always a treat. This Oscar winning thespian makes even second-rate psychological pabulum like "While You Were Sleeping" director Jon Turteltaub's "Instinct" shine. Cast as Ethan Powell, Hopkins plays an eminent anthropologist who disappeared into the Rwandan jungles under mysterious circumstances while studying a tribe of mountain gorillas. Two years later, authorities finally tracked down Powell and found him living with the apes. After Powell killed two trigger-happy park rangers, officials arrested, convicted and incarcerated him for a double homicide. Eventually, Powell is extradited to America for a psychological evaluation. Oscar winner Cuba Gooding, Jr., plays the psychiatric resident who struggles to learn what ignited Powell and why the famous primatologist has refused to talk since his arrest.

Ostensibly, "Instinct" takes place in the unsavory, claustrophobic confines of the psychotic ward at Harmony Bay Correctional Facility. This Florida maximum security penitentiary rivals the lock-ups in both "The Snake Pit" (1948) and "The Midnight Express" (1978). Rwandan officials have turned the well-known researcher back over to U.S. authorities, and Powell is flown back to meet his old friend and colleague, Ben Hillard (Donald Sutherland of "M.A.S.H."), for an evaluation. Hillard's ambitious protégé, Theo Caulder (Cuba Gooding, Jr., of "Jerry Maguire") requests the assignment. Caulder knows that success with Powell will garner not only professional accolades but also a book deal. Meanwhile, when he arrives at Miami Airport, Powell goes berserk after an alarm system frightens him. Consequently, authorities confine him at Harmony Bay and Caulder begins his evaluation. Initially, Powell wants nothing to do with Caulder. Eventually, during a series of interviews, Caulder and Powell forge a friendship, and Caulder feels confident enough that he can get his patient out of prison and back at home with his daughter Lynn (Maura Tierney of "Liar Liar") and her mother.

Nothing rewarding is won easily in a good movie. Theo Caulder finds life at Harmony Bay nothing like school at the University of Miami. Hillard reminds Caulder that as psychiatric resident he is only there to appraise Powell, not win his release. Nevertheless, Caulder launches a crusade. Harmony Bay with its callous warden, overcrowded conditions, sadistic guards, and burned-out staff psychiatrist hamper him. In the process, Caulder converts psychiatrist John Murray (George Dzundza of "The Beast"), aggravates Warden Keefer (John Aylward of "Finding Graceland"), indicts Guard Dacks (John Ashton of "King Kong Lives"), and wins over the poor inmates who have suffered from abuse and neglect.

Anthony Hopkins brings his Hannibal Lector persona to the role, but he looks nothing like Lector. In fact, Hopkins resembles Sean Connery from his early scenes in "The Rock." Ethan Powell sports shaggy, shoulder-length, gray hair as well as an Ernst Hemingway beard. He dominates "Instinct" with his steely-eyed presence and his crisp dialogue delivery. Essentially, Powell serves as the human equivalent of a moral compass. Wrongly imprisoned, he represents a character as much as a cause, but Hopkins never lets you overlook the human qualities in Ethan Powell. Happily, "Instinct" winks at the audience occasionally where Powell is concerned. When Rwandan authorities load him into a truck, they put him in with two vicious Dobermans. At the end of the trip, the authorities find Powell lounging in the rear with the dogs resting comfortably on his lap! If imitation is the greatest form of flattery, then director John Turteltaub and "Sharkey's Machine" scenarist Gerald DiPego have flattered the best. They have contrived "Instinct" from bits and pieces of better movies, such as "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Gorillas in the Mist," "Silence of the Lambs," "Cool Hand Luke," "The Wild Child," "The Shawshank Redemption," "Mighty Joe Young," and "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan." Incredibly, their strategy works. "Instinct" is as much a saga about the trouble characters on-screen as it is about the human condition. Indeed, you've heard everything in this movie before, but Turteltaub and DiPego recycle it with an air of sincerity that makes it quite touching. They pace the plot so that just when you think that everything is going to work out wonderfully, the bottom drops out. In this respect, "Instinct" resembles the 1965 Sean Connery World War II prison saga "The Hill." "Instinct" has a lot on its mind, and most of it is reassuring clichés. The gorillas display more altruism than humans. Meanwhile, people behave considerably more savage than animals. Powell condemns mankind as takers who exploit. He gorillas that he studied, for example, live in peace. Humans, on the other hand, spoil for war. Powell teaches Caulder that modern-day man enjoys little freedom. Instead, the illusion of freedom blinds him. He braves a daily gauntlet of withering career pressures that require conformity to authority. As a result, the messages and issues are familiar, facile, but feature enough truth to salve the soul. Turteltaub orchestrates the clichés and sentiments so adroitly that you sympathize with the protagonist even when you know that you're being shamelessly manipulated about their plight.

Although Hopkins and Gooding dominate the action, they get great support from Donald Sutherland at his avuncular best as Caulder's boss, Maura Tierney, and George Dzundza. John Ashton, best known as Eddie Murphy's sidekick in the "Beverly Hills Cop" franchise, excels as a ruthless prison guard who pits the inmates against themselves to maintain control over them. Ashton is every bit as despicable as Louis Fletcher's strong-willed Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" As Warden Keefer, Aylward spends less time on-screen than Ashton, but he uses his moments to convey a chilling air of menace.

Ultimately, "Instinct" ruminates about man's depravity. Sure, the movie sounds like a sermon at times, but "Instinct" shows more heart than most movies, and you leave it feeling good about yourself even when you know it is artifice masquerading as art. The naïve happy ending is enough to make you applaud, even when you realize that it is childishly preposterous. Nevertheless, the satisfaction derived from such a wrap-up makes "Instinct" all the more gratifying.

INSTINCT is an odd little follow-up to THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, featuring Anthony Hopkins in a similarly psychotic turn as an anthropologist whose time living with gorillas in Africa has turned him feral. He now resides in prison, where Cuba Gooding Jr. plays a psychiatrist taking over his case. What follows is a film which mixes psychological thrills and spills with standard prison genre elements, including violent inmates and sadistic guards. Hopkins and Gooding Jr. are both good enough to keep you engaged by this film despite the slightly slow pace and over-familiarity of the plot elements. In the end, it's another interesting treatise on the human condition.