Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Cortechba Overrated

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

philipfoxe Just watched this based on the reasonable rating here. I could only stand 35 minutes(and that was hard going) up to then I could see it was a low budget knock off of Cool Hand Luke, complete with sadistic warder and Southern drawl governor. Nothing was credible. Cuba Gooding was just pathetic as a supposed shrink, mouthing infantile dialogue. Hopkins was good but he always is; just a shame he'll appear in just about anything. A waste of 35 minutes and a reminder that many people who post here are not exactly knowledgeable about film. Read the bad reviews first is a good guide.

TragicBloom This movie is almost unbearable. It is impossible for me to accept Cuba Gooding Jr's character; his lines are so bad. Like he's just completely fallen in love with the good dr (Hopkins) and his gorillas. That mushy goodbye to Hopkins towards the end, His "knowing" smile at the end as he repeats "You'll never find him", like he shares in anyway what Hopkins has done, raising his interlocked wrists in a display of his willingness to be arrested for the gorilla cause (what?), like he's been given the key to some life changing secret; it's all so very pathetic and impotent. This is a Cuba at his most impressionable and feminine; it's almost kind of funny.That covers sappy, now here's the delusional. The movie says nothing, NOTHING, yet acts like it's so very profound, like uttering the obvious aloud would only cheapen the experience because of it's uniqueness. The secret is, we are not in control; there, now you can go live your lives with renewed purpose, smiling mischievously to fellow passersby who are also in the know. How is this message supposed to help one iota everyone who is forced to live the rat race on a daily basis? Money may not seem very enlightening, but it's what puts food on the table and a roof over our head, and it seems more and more work is becoming necessary just to have the money necessary for humble assurances like these at the end of each day.Oh Lord; I just finished the last 5 minutes, and I'm sorry I did. Cuba standing in the rain, finally free from his illusions, and Hopkins walking off into the jungle, nevermind how he got there, and WHY we have no resolution with his daughter. Like, why stress about the details man? Life's too short, and there are far too many monkeys out there to love. It seems Hopkins and Cuba bonded more than Hopkins ever did with his daughter, but it's OK because she's loving and she'll understand. The end :)

brando647 INSTINCT was an obvious bit of attempted Oscar bait from director Jon Turteltaub back in 1999. Turteltaub is the man responsible for such generic adventure fare as the NATIONAL TREASURE movies and generic family fare as THE KID. So what better man to direct a generic wannabe award winner? INSTINCT has all of the ingredients to be a critical favorite but it's missing that one crucial element: being a good movie. I'm not saying it's a bad movie because it's actually not. It's just forgettable. You probably won't feel let down after spending two hours watching this movie, but it won't take much longer to forget that it existed. INSTINCT wants to be tense. It wants to be inspirational. It wants to tug at the heartstrings. But it doesn't, because it's so transparent in its intentions. Or at least, I thought so. The movie follows an aspiring psychologist named Theo Caulder, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. He's assigned to a unique case by his mentor (Donald Sutherland) and sees an opportunity to jump-start his career with a bestseller. Accomplished anthropologist Ethan Powell (Anthony Hopkins) has been transferred to a prison in the US from Rwanda, where he was doing time for murdering men after disappearing into the jungles for nearly two years. Upon Powell's return to civilization, he is a changed man. Feral and refusing to speak, Caulder dedicates his time to Powell, determined to find out what happened in those jungles, why he disappeared, and what drove him to murder.What bothered me about this movie was that it couldn't decide what it wanted to focus on. There are two main through-lines in this movie, running at the same time. There's, of course, the main storyline with Caulder and Powell and the story of their interactions, and then there's an entirely different unrelated subplot of how the prison that Powell is transferred to is a miserable place where the guards abuse the mentally handicapped and the prison shrink does nothing for his patients. In my opinion, these are two different movies and conflict with each other. Once you finally get involved in the Powell/Caulder interviews, it rips you away from that to show how Caulder is inspired to reform the prison's system for handling its mental patients. And it bounces back and forth so often that I just didn't care as much as I should for either storyline. Subplots are OK, but they don't generally get equal screen time with the main story because it detracts from it. Besides, we've already got movies that handle uncaring mental health care in bigger and better ways (e.g. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST). I watched this movie because I wanted to see Hopkins and Gooding Jr. to engage in a mental game of cat and mouse. I wanted a good, tense psychological drama and I got it…in bits and pieces. Each story was entertaining enough but the entire movie ends up leaving you (well, I suppose it left me anyway) unfulfilled.Another issue I had with the movie is that it's populated with characters we've already seen before. No one in the movie feels like an original creation. The obvious example is Anthony Hopkins as Ethan Powell. In this movie, he's just a toned down version of his more famous (and more interesting) Hannibal Lecter. He was probably the worst choice for the role because of the obvious parallels, unless the filmmakers were counting on people to make that connection and hoped it would add to it. Cuba Gooding Jr. is every movie psychologist you've ever seen rolled up into one man as Caulder. He does well enough, as this was back before he thought SNOW DOGS was a smart career move. But, come on…we've seen this shtick before and he isn't bringing anything new to it. His optimism is meant to be inspirational...he IS going to reach this troubled man! He IS going to make this horrible prison a better place for it's inhabitants! Blah. The rest of the cast fails to make any sort of impressions as shallow caricatures. There's the disillusioned prison psychiatrist who's given up hope…the evil guard who finds entertainment in turning the strongest of the patients against the weak. There's Powell's daughter, long since given up on her absent father. It's just all so…been there, done that. If they'd focused on one story (the Powell/Caulder one, naturally) and fleshed out their characters into real people, this movie might've been what it was blatantly aspiring to be. Instead, it's good enough for a quiet evening but don't go in expecting the inspiring tale they're trying to sell.

callanvass (Credit IMDb) 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 dream world. 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.Instinct is a powerful film, which succeeds more often then not. I've seen critics bash this film, and IMDb reviewers themselves, and for what? It's got a strong story, a great background story regarding Hopkins, and whenever those two interacted I was on the edge of my seat. I was also really touched by some of the flashback scenes with Hopkins and the Gorilla's, it was very well done. What starts off as a power struggle between Cuba and Hopkins turns into a unique and beautiful friendship, and I loved the way it went down. This is one of Cuba's most underrated movies, and I don't get the disdain for it.Performances. Anthony Hopkins is excellent here, as usual. His intensity knows no bounds, and I always felt alert and glued to my seat whenever his presence was on my T.V screen. His chemistry with Cuba was great as well. Cuba Gooding is very effective here, giving one of his finest performances in his hey-day of success. I've always been a big fan of his, and wish his work was fine these days such as this one. Donald Sutherland is wasted in a bit role here, he was OK. Maura Tierney is good in her limited screen time.Bottom line. I don't get why people dislike this movie, it's got everything I want in a Dramatization. Hopefully you'll be like me, and see this movie for what I feel it is, a really good film. Very much recommended.8/10