Instinct (film)

Instinct
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jon Turteltaub
Produced by	Michael Taylor Barbara Boyle
Screenplay by	Gerald Di Pego
Story by	Gerald Di Pego
Based on	Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Starring	Anthony Hopkins Cuba Gooding, Jr. Donald Sutherland Maura Tierney George Dzundza John Ashton John Aylward Thomas Q. Morris Doug Spinuzza Paul Bates
Music by	Danny Elfman
Cinematography	Philippe Rousselot
Editing by	Richard Francis-Bruce
Studio	Spyglass Entertainment Touchstone Pictures
Distributed by	Buena Vista Pictures
Release date(s)	June 4, 1999 (1999-06-04)
Running time	126 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$80 million
Box office	$34,105,207

Instinct is a 1999 American film starring Anthony Hopkins, Cuba Gooding, Jr., George Dzundza, Donald Sutherland, Kim Cattrall and Maura Tierney. It was very loosely inspired by Ishmael, a novel by Daniel Quinn. In the United States, the film had the working title Ishmael. In 2000, the film was nominated for and won a Genesis Award in the category of feature film.

Plot

The film examines the mind of anthropologist Ethan Powell (Hopkins) who has been missing for a few years, living in the jungle with gorillas. He had been convicted of killing and injuring several supposed Wilderness Park Rangers in Africa, and is sent to prison. A bright young psychiatrist (Gooding) tries to find out why he killed them, but becomes entangled in a quest to learn the true history and nature of humankind. Eventually it is revealed that the man did it to protect his gorilla family when the rangers arrived and started shooting them. He gets a hearing to reveal the truth, but an attack by a vicious guard causes Powell to stop talking again. At the end of the film, Powell escapes from prison, using a pen to dig out the lock on a window and heads back to Africa.

Cast

• Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Dr. Theo Caulder
• Kim Cattrall as Mary Powell
• Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Ethan Powell
• Maura Tierney as Lynn Powell
• John Ashton as Guard Dacks
• George Dzundza as Dr. John Murray
• Donald Sutherland as Dr. Ben Hillard
• John Aylward as Warden Jack Keefer
• Doug Spinuzza as Nicko
• Thomas Morris as Peter Holden
• Rex Linn as Guard Alan

Reception

The film received mostly poor or mixed reviews. Review aggregator Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, states the film received an average score of 43 based on 23 reviews. The film also performed poorly at the box office, grossing only $34,105,207 in the United States and Canada. The film won a Genesis Award.

Soundtrack

Instinct
Film score by Danny Elfman
Released	1999
Label	Walt Disney
Danny Elfman chronology
Men in Black (1997) Instinct (1999) Sleepy Hollow (1999)

1. "Main Title"
2. "Into the Wild"
3. "Back to the Forest"
4. "Everybody Goes"
5. "The Killing:
6. "The Riot"
7. "Escape"
8. "End Credits"

External links

• Instinct at the Internet Movie Database
• Instinct at AllRovi
• Instinct at Box Office Mojo