Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.0

Fatal Instinct Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 2, 2015

William Goldman is one of the most celebrated screenwriters of his generation (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, The Princess Bride), but even Goldman has not been immune to the knowledge that part of his celebrity has been the result of the vagaries of critics, always a questionable lot. In Goldman’s fascinating account of the 1967-68 year on Broadway, The Season, Goldman talks quite a bit about critics and their influence on that particular avenue (and/or Way) of show business, at one point discussing his thesis of the so-called “charm show”, a perhaps quieter, gentler entertainment that on its face may not have any knock your socks off moments, but which generates enough, well, charm to merit being produced. Goldman talks about how timing can affect whether a charm show succeeds or fails, often depending on whether the critics are frankly in the mood for that kind of outing at the time they have to review it. Goldman makes the case that the critics were primed for My Fair Lady (in its Broadway incarnation), his paradigm of a charm show, turning it into a massive hit. Years later (during the 1967-68 season) they weren’t quite in the same mood for a show that Goldman (whether rightly or wrongly) relegates to the same charm show genre as My Fair Lady, a musical called The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N, which opened and closed quickly in the spring of 1968 (and which starred future Mr. C from Happy Days, Tom Bosley) after failing to ignite the same critical rapture that the Lerner and Loewe Pygmalion musical had the previous decade. Maybe something at least somewhat analogous afflicted Fatal Instinct, for if one were to read the sometimes scabrous reviews this film endured when it was released in 1993, one might come to the conclusion that it’s a lame and unfunny send up of noir films and erotic thrillers in the same way that Airplane! skewered disaster films. Well, guess what? This particular critic laughed—and laughed a lot—at the, yes, juvenile and sometimes patently stupid goings-on in Fatal Instinct, perhaps proving that critical taste is questionable one way or the other. Perhaps critics back in the day had seen one too many "Zucker lite" entries to warrant cutting Fatal Instinct much slack. But the fact is, Fatal Instinct doesn't really require much slack cutting if one simply accepts it on its own patently silly terms.

When Airplane! hit cineplexes (not to mention the terminal) in 1980, the film’s nonstop succession of gags was a breathless achievement, though even the film’s most rabid fans would probably admit (perhaps under duress) that not every joke in the film landed with equal force. But there was a thrilling insouciance to the screenplay by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, where any given element, whether it be plot, character, or “meta” elements like breaking the fourth wall or winking non sequiturs, was ripe territory for skewering. The perhaps unexpected success of Airplane! not so surprisingly gave birth to a glut of similarly structured parodies, and it’s also no big surprise that very few if any of them reached the manic intensity of Airplane! itself. That may be one salient reason why Fatal Instinct failed to connect with either audiences or critics in 1993— folks probably felt (rightly or wrongly) that they had seen this type of thing before. Seen now with a bit of perspective and hindsight, Fatal Instinct is unexpectedly spry quite a bit of the time, with a lot of very effective sight gags if a somewhat fractured plot due to the plethora of properties being parodied.

Armand Assante (a perhaps odd casting choice) plays Ned Ravine, a guy who “goes both ways” by working as a cop and a criminal defense attorney. The film starts out with a little mini-parody of Body Heat, with Ned meeting femme fatale Lola Cain (Sean Young) at a carnival, where Ned is soon distracted by his attempts to catch a thief he’s been tracking for some time. Already the stupid jokes have been piling up, beginning with a voice over narration that turns out to be dialogue that confuses another cop, and a running gag where Lola seems incapable of walking anywhere in her stiletto heels without picking up detritus on the floor. The modern noir staple of ubiquitous smoky sax music is also sent up, as none other but the late Clarence Clemons shows up here and in several later scenes, playing his axe in the background (and occasionally following various characters around while he’s playing). Is there really that much of a qualitative difference between some of these gags and the similarly juvenile jokes found in abundance in Airplane!?

Fatal Instinct probably has a few too many cinematic antecedents on its silly mind for its own good. In addition to the Body Heat angle, Double Indemnity’s classic plot enters the fray with a plot arc detailing the machinations of Ned’s cheating wife Lana (Kate Nelligan) plotting her husband’s demise with her none too bright lover, an auto mechanic named Frank Kelbo (Christopher McDonald). Less utilized than these other two, but still around enough to add to the somewhat frayed feeling the film often has, Sleeping with the Enemy also shows up with regard to Ned’s secretary Laura Lincolnberry (Sherilyn Fenn), a gorgeously sweet young thing who obviously has a big crush on Ned, but who is suffering from a certain amount of post traumatic stress disorder (at least when unfolded towels are in the mix) after having escaped a controlling husband (Michael Cumpsty), who of course shows up to wreak further havoc. But also wreaking havoc is ex-con Max Shady (James Remar), a guy who was arrested by Ned and then defended (none to successfully) by him as well.

While probably too overstuffed by half, Fatal Instinct has a number of very funny sequences, and all of the actors, many of whom would seem to be strange choices for a film like this, acquit themselves rather well. The film is extremely well paced by comedy icon Carl Reiner, a man who surely knows how to wring the most humor out of even the most pedestrian scene. And, no, I won’t stop calling him Shirley.

Fatal Instinct Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Fatal Instinct is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Culled from the Metro Goldwyn Mayer catalog, Fatal Instinct shows a slight bit of fade at times, but generally speaking the palette is rather fresh and even sporadically quite vivid. Detail pops best in the most brightly lit scenes, though Reiner and DP Gabriel Baristain opt for "old school" techniques like soft focus for at least some close-ups of Young, something that tends to diminish fine detail. The transfer has a generally organic look, albeit one that's a bit soft quite a bit of the time.

Fatal Instinct Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Fatal Instinct's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 supports the film's goofy dialogue and sound effects effortlessly, though some fans of the film may be distressed that some of the original source cues have evidently been replaced here due to licensing issues (one of which completely kills a joke which directly references the original song utilized). Fidelity is fine, with no age related damage of any kind to warrant concern.

Fatal Instinct Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Director Carl Reiner and Writer David O'Malley. This is enjoyable and often quite funny, if rather surprisingly low key a lot of the time. The commentary addresses elements like casting and some of the sources that were parodied.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 22:53) feature optional commentary by Reiner and O'Malley as well. Despite being ostensibly in high definition, these are upscaled and windowboxed and sourced from an obvious old, faded and damaged source.


• Original Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:54)

Fatal Instinct Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Those who steered far clear of Fatal Instinct back in the day due to the critical drubbing it endured may want to revisit the film again, for it's actually goofily enjoyable if taken on its own juvenile, unabashedly stupid terms. This is one of those films that, like Airplane! itself, just keeps throwing gags at the audience, hoping that something sticks. It turns out more than just the gum Lola keeps stepping on does stick, and Fatal Instinct comes Recommended.