Last week, presumably due to a technical error, there was no 99p rental on iTunes. Now i’ll be honest, based on the suspect selections of recent weeks, it was nice to get a week off. I also considered the possibility that Apple had maybe decided to stop it altogether.
I thought that would be a great shame. Then it came back this week, and i had to watch Carl Reiner’s Fatal Instinct…
Ned (Armand Assante) is a police officer, and a lawyer. He believes greatly in the justice system, which is why he has no trouble defending the criminals that he arrests. His wife, Lana (Kate Nelligan), presumably feeling neglected due to her husbands time consuming dual role, is having an affair with her mechanic, Frank (Christopher McDonald). Upon discovering a clause in Ned’s life insurance that pays triple if a particular, highly unlikely accident occurs, enlists her lover to assist in a convoluted plan to bring about said unlikely scenario, in an attempt to become nine million dollars richer.
Meanwhile, a mysterious woman, Lola (Sean Young), who Ned ran into at the fairground, begs his services. The presence of the attractive stranger immediately raises the ire of Ned’s assistant, Laura (Sherilyn Fenn) who is secretly in love with him. Regardless, Ned and his new client embark on a tumultuous affair, despite his love and devotion to his devious wife.
Eventually, he spurns his lover, just before his wife’s dastardly plans are put
into action. During an attempt to shoot her husband, Lana mistakenly shoots a recently released convict, who had murderous intentions of his own towards Ned, who had arrested said convict and then failed to win the defendant’s case. Ned, believing his wife had been trying to protect him, takes on Lana’s case as her lawyer.
Ok, i’m gonna stop before it really gets silly. Fatal Instinct is a parody of Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, and all the other erotic thrillers that were once in vogue. It’s somewhere between Naked Gun and Scary Movie in it’s style of comedy, featuring the very worst elements of each. It’s just not funny.
There’s no comedy here, just tired wordplay and poor sight gags, that on the whole don’t really make sense. I laughed once, when Frank attempted to creep out of Ned’s bedroom as he slept. Predictably, he made a huge racket in the process, but Ned didn’t stir. That’s it! And that was only funny because i’d had to sit through so much that wasn’t just to get there.
It’d be unfair to make a judgement on the actors performances in this film, 
as they have been given so little to work with. Sherilyn Fenn does, however, appear to belong in another movie. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just that her character hasn’t been given much in the way of bad puns, and as a result she appears a lot more grounded than the silliness around her.
In short (and i have kept it short for you), Fatal Instinct is easily one of the worst movies i have ever seen, and iTunes should be ashamed of themselves for subjecting me to it. Tut tut.
Fatal Instinct is available on iTu… Oh what’s the point, no-one is still reading. Buy yourself a couple of Wispas instead. Yummy.
