Instinct

Reviews you've already read have mentioned the good stuff that Instinct screenwriter Gerald DiPego and director Jon Turtletaub have cribbed from better sources, like The Shawshank Redemption, Silence of the Lambs, The Snake Pit, and others. One could argue that with so many reviews mentioning the same flaws in the same way, the critics might be cribbing from each other. But that's not really the case -- the star power on display here may draw the viewer in, but DiPego 's derivative screenplay and Turtletaub's obvious manipulation dilute the movie's intended effect.

Turtletaub and DiPego's last big-screen effort was the New Age weepy Phenomenon, which starred John Travolta as a regular joe made super-smart by a light in the sky. He was a man with The Big Secret, a theme that carries over into Instinct. Now it's Dr. Ethan Powell (Anthony Hopkins) who carries the Big Secret, learned from two years living with gorillas in Africa. Not living among them and studying them in a Dian Fossey-Jane Goodall way... Powell lives with them, becomes accepted into the silverback society, and learns from them. (The source material, the novel Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, has the main character become a literal student of the titular gorilla.) When first we see the good doctor, though, he's a mute, violent madman being deported from Rwanda, where he has killed two men, to America. One of the many weaknesses of the script is the nature of the tragedy that has caused Powell's rage and silence... we already know what's happened thanks to Gorillas in the Mist, which removes one big part of the film's impact.

(In a strange scene, Sigourney Weaver's name comes up in reference to demon possession, perhaps a satirical reference to both Gorillas and Ghostbusters?.)

Ambitious psychiatrist Theo Caulder (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), in his last year of residency, lands the plum evaluation assignment, visions of best-seller status and rapid career advancement dancing in his head. What actually happens on-screen is not so exciting -- the great game of cat-and-mouse that Hopkins and Jodie Foster played in Silence of the Lambs becomes as diluted as Hannibal Lector becoming Dr. Powell. It takes no time for Caulder to get the mute murderer to speak, and before long Powell can't shut up, spouting reams of obvious truths about takers, hunter-gatherers, primitive man, and protecting loved ones. His Big Secret isn't so big -- live in harmony with nature, give up dominion over the world -- and has been expressed better in many other films, like Gorillas and Dances with Wolves.