Instinct is a 1999 Drama-Thriller movie directed by Jon Turteltaub and starring Anthony Hopkins, Cuba Gooding Jr., Maura Tierney and Donald Sutherland.
Years after going missing in the African jungle, renowned anthropologist Dr. Ethan Powell (Hopkins) is found and convicted in the murder of two poachers and is imprisoned in a prison psych ward after seemingly becoming dangerous and unhinged. Ambitious young psychiatrist Theo Caulder (Gooding Jr.) is brought in to look at his case and attempt to get Dr. Powell to speak and possibly go to trial for his release, however in the process he learns that Dr. Powell might be more sane than he appears and has more to teach him than he thinks.
It was inspired loosely by the book Ishmael.
No relation to the TV show or zombie game.
Tropes
- Actor Allusion: Anthony Hopkins playing a doctor imprisoned in an asylum… sound familiar?
- Animal Lover: Powell is this as he came to develop a strong bond with a family of Gorillas and is shown to be fond of dogs, able to befriend and tame two guard dogs he is locked in a truck with.
- Bedlam House: The psych ward where Powell is held isn't a nice place. Patients are overmedicated and routinely pitted against each other by a sadistic guard who brutalizes them at any opportunity, all for the authorities maintaining control. Dr. John Murray, who Theo Caulder comes to assist, says this was even worse before he took over.
- Better with Non-Human Company: Powell is fonder of animals (gorillas especially) far more than his own species.
- Crime of Self-Defense: Powell was convicted of murder and imprisoned for killing supposed park rangers with a wooden club. They were really poachers and he did it to stop them slaughtering his gorilla "family".
- Disappeared Dad: Powell was mostly off in Africa studying gorillas while his daughter grew up and had little time for her. When they meet again Powell apologizes and says he was a fool, saying he wishes it was possible for him to go back, never letting go of her.
- Evil Poacher: A group of Ugandan poachers brutally shoot the gorillas who Powell lives with. He kills two and wounds others while attempting to stop the slaughter. He's convicted of murder for it, with the government saying the men were park rangers. There's no apparent motive in the film presented for this, so apparently it's just the hell of it.
- Going Native: In a way, as Powell was once an anthropologist studying gorillas who eventually joined a gorilla group and had lived with them for years. He himself says this was an extraordinary and unprecedented event.
- Humans Are Bastards: Powell has developed this belief. Seeing civilization as a mistake because humans have strayed too far from the natural world and only exploit and take from it.
- My Greatest Failure: Powell, after living in a gorilla group, has come to loathe the fact that he'd once captured a gorilla he named Goliath. He now lives in a zoo, making no attempt to escape even when the door's opened as he's broken by captivity.
- Nature Hero: Powell has become this, after living for two years with a family of gorillas and choosing to be isolated from humanity and becoming part of the natural world.
- Superior Species: Powell views the gorillas as this.
- Trailers Always Lie: The film trailer makes it seem like Powell is akin to Hannibal Lecter or someone similar, an imprisoned sociopathic killer who plays mind games with his doctor. While at first it seems this way, the film later goes in a completely different direction.
