FATAL INSTINCT
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1993 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Armand Assante, Sean Young, Sherilynn Fenn, Kate Nelligan, Christopher McDonald, James Remar. Screenplay: David O'Malley. Director: Carl Reiner.
Never underestimate the power of expectations. In the wake of HOT SHOTS! PART DEUX, LOADED WEAPON 1 and ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS, I viewed yet another genre parody as cruel and inhuman punishment, and awaited FATAL INSTINCT with utter dread. Then, much to my astonishment, it didn't stink. Oh, make no mistake: FATAL INSTINCT isn't particularly good. I simply laughed much more than I expected to. How's that for damning with faint praise?
The "plot" of FATAL INSTINCT is a pastiche of elements from contemporary sexual thrillers and classic film noir. Ned Rivera (Armand Assante) is an L.A. police detective who moonlights as a defense attorney, or perhaps vice-versa. He is oblivious to the attentions of his loyal secretary Laura (Sherilynn Fenn), but finds himself tempted by the sexy and seductive Lola Cain (Sean Young). After a one night stand, Ned breaks off with Lola out of marital guilt. What Ned doesn't know is that his wife Laura (Kate Nelligan) is having an affair of her own, and planning with her lover Frank (Christopher McDonald) to murder Ned in a very specific manner to cash in on a triple indemnity insurance policy. Meanwhile, a vindictive ex-con Ned unsuccessfully defended (James Remar) is paroled, and plots to kill Ned as well. Once the jilted Lola is added to the mix, it seems everyone in L.A. wants Ned Rivera dead.
The best of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker parodies (AIRPLANE!, THE NAKED GUN) demonstrated sucessful application of a fundamental rule for the form: keep the gags coming so fast that you don't have time to notice the lousy ones. FATAL INSTINCT owes its successes, small as they may be, to adherence to this principal. There are plenty of duds in FATAL INSTINCT, but the pacing is lively enough that they don't sit there waiting for an audience reaction that's never going to come. Director Carl Reiner hasn't shown a consistent talent for comic pacing in his feature film career; for every WHERE'S POPPA? or ALL OF ME, there has been a SUMMER SCHOOL or SIBLING RIVALRY. Fortunately, the Carl Reiner who helped Steve Martin's early parodies click is at work here. He keeps everything moving, avoiding the error that sank MEN IN TIGHTS.
Those ZAZ classics had one other important thing going for them, namely well-known dramatic actors like Leslie Nielsen and Lloyd Bridges playing a brilliant deadpan mockery of their own B-movie roles. Armand Assante is a better dramatic actor than Nielsen or Bridges, but he too turns in a fine spoof of one of the lowlights on his resume, the dopey Mike Hammer tale I, THE JURY. He seems to have a great deal of fun mocking the image of the sullen detective, and pulls off some surprisingly deft physical comedy. It's also a hoot watching Sean Young play to her reputation as a jealous psycho. Perhaps half my enjoyment of FATAL INSTINCT came from appreciating the career subtext of these two performances.
Before it seems as though I have nothing but kind words for FATAL INSTINCT, there is one major thing lacking: originality. Its primary satirical targets are BASIC INSTINCT, FATAL ATTRACTION and CAPE FEAR, each of which has been done in other recent films or TV's "The Simpsons." Granted, the scripts were in production simultaneously, but much of the freshness is still lost. There are also some tedious "lotsies," those sequences of progressively sillier events a la O. J. Simpson's ill-fated boat investigation at the beginning of THE NAKED GUN. They have to be completely over the top to work, and FATAL INSTINCT's script repeatedly shows a resistance to giving in to complete anarchy. There was a moment near the climax when I was waiting for an almost too-obvious gag which *still* would have been funny, but screenwriter David O'Malley missed his opportunity.
In retrospect, I almost feel guilty about some of the places I laughed. It's hard to explain how a line like, "I'll try to help you, Miss Cain, if I'm able," can seem funny, but it did. Plenty of people will leave FATAL INSTINCT shaking their heads. I don't know; maybe they were expecting too much.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 ice picks: 6.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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