SPOILER ALERT: the following article contains massive spoilers, including the ending. If you have not yet seen the movie, proceed at your own risk, or better, come back to this article later!
After a crash that kills her boyfriend, Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) has her car searched by the police, who find illegal drugs. Prosecutors handling her case send Tramell to see psychiatrist Michael Glass (David Morrissey). Glass determines that Tramell, a novelist whose books deal with sensational murders, might just be a dangerous person herself. But his findings don’t prevent him from embarking on a sexually charged relationship with the cunning cougar.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Basic Instinct 2 Plot Summary and Synopsis
Set in London, the film opens with American best-selling author Catherine Tramell in a speeding car with her companion, Kevin Franks, a famous English football star.
Tramell takes the man’s hand and begins masturbating herself with it, all the while increasing her vehicle’s speed. Franks, who is semi-unconscious, does not seem to be aware of what is happening.
At the point of orgasm, Tramell veers off the road and crashes into the West India Docks in Canary Wharf on the Thames River. She attempts to save her partner, but as she says while being questioned later by the police, “When it came down to it, I guess my life was more important to me than his.”
Tramell is interrogated by Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent Roy Washburn, who notes that D-tubocurarine (DTC), which is a neuromuscular blocking agent used to relax muscles during general anaesthesia for medical surgery, was found in her car and in her companion’s body, and the companion was not breathing at the time of the crash (according to the autopsy), and that a man named “Dicky Pep” said that he sold Tramell “15 milliliters of DTC last Thursday”.
Tramell counters by saying that this Dicky Pep must be lying because, “you’ve got him on some other charge and he’s trying to deal his way out, if he even exists”.
Tramell begins therapy sessions with Dr. Michael Glass, who has conducted a court-ordered psychiatric examination and given testimony in her case.
Dr. Glass strongly suspects that Tramell is a narcissist incapable of telling the difference between right and wrong. Tramell begins to play mind games with Glass, who becomes increasingly frustrated and intrigued by her.
Meanwhile, the journalist boyfriend of Glass’s ex-wife, who was in the process of writing a story critical of Glass, is found strangled to death.
More murders begin to surface around Dr. Glass, including his own ex-wife, as his obsession with Tramell grows; when his career and life are threatened, he begins to suspect that Tramell is really committing the murders and attempting to frame him for them. Glass increasingly cannot himself distinguish between right and wrong, and the London police begin to suspect him. He confronts Tramell at her apartment, where they engage in passionate sex.
Tramell gives Glass a copy of the draft of her next novel, titled The Analyst. After reading it, he realises that Tramell has novelised most of the recent events, with Glass and herself as characters. A character based on Glass’s female colleague, Dr. Milena Gardosh, is depicted as the next murder victim in the novel.
Glass runs to Dr. Gardosh’s apartment to warn her, finding Tramell already there. Gardosh informs him that he is no longer in charge of Tramell’s therapy and that his license will be revoked.
Glass and Gardosh struggle, and she is knocked unconscious. Tramell then threatens Glass with a gun she carries, but Glass takes it away from her.
When Detective Superintendent Washburn arrives at the scene, Tramell manipulates Dr. Glass into shooting him.
Basic Instinct 2 Ending
In the final scene, Tramell pays a visit to Dr. Glass now at a local mental hospital, where he has been institutionalised, and he learns from her that the novel has become a best seller.
Tramell claims that she manipulated Glass into committing all those murders, and flashbacks are shown of Glass committing the murders.
Tramell leaves with a smirk on her face, while Glass continues to sit silently in his wheelchair.
Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).