Sliver: [DVD] by Sharon Stone

A guilty pleasure but nothing more, Sliver is a tame thriller, made at the height of Sharon Stone?s fame as she rode high off the back of Basic Instinct. Where Sliver goes wrong though is in effectively trying to transpose the elements that made Stone?s name into the film (right down to getting Basic Instinct scribe Joe Ezterhas to pen the script) It doesn?t work, but you can?t deny that the mess it all ends up as isn?t strangely entertaining.The plot follows Stone?s character as she rents a room in an elegant block of flats. So far so good. But then there?s the small matter that someone is using an extensive surveillance system to watch Stone and the other inhabitants of the flats. Could it be Alec Baldwin? Could it be Tom Berenger? As the two of them fight for Stone?s affections--replete with obligatory sex scenes--there's a high chance you won?t actually be that bothered, as the film desperately tries to grasp what made Basic Instinct a major hit, yet fairly brutally fails.But still, there?s fun to be had. The acting is evenly under par, and Phillip Noyce?s direction is far from his best, yet thanks to a series of unintentional giggles and a fairly snappy pace, Sliver does has its moments. Just not that many of them?--Simon Brew