Instinct

A primatologist who spent years living among the mountain gorillas of Africa returns to the United States silent, withdrawn and accused of killing several men in Rwanda. Committed to a prison hospital for the criminally insane, Dr. Ethan Powell refuses to speak to anyone. A young, ambitious psychiatrist, Dr. Theo Caulder, takes on his evaluation, seeing in the case a chance to make his name. What begins as clinical observation becomes a struggle to reach a man who seems to have crossed over into something other than human society, and Caulder finds himself risking his career and his safety as he tries to understand what Powell witnessed. The film was directed by Jon Turteltaub, whose credits in the same decade include Cool Runnings, While You Were Sleeping and Phenomenon; it followed Phenomenon and preceded The Kid in his filmography. Gerald Di Pego wrote the screenplay, and Michael Taylor and Barbara Boyle produced. Anthony Hopkins plays Powell and Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Caulder, with Donald Sutherland, Maura Tierney, George Dzundza and John Ashton in supporting roles.

Released in June 1999, the film carries a large budget of 80 million US dollars but returned only about 34 million worldwide, a poor result against its cost. On TMDB it holds a rating of 6.5 out of 10 from 682 votes, while the film critics' rating stands at 4.2 out of 10 from 65 reviews, a clear gap between professional and audience response. It runs 124 minutes and was made in the United States by Touchstone Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment.