Fatal Instinct (1993)

Directed by Carl Reiner. Starring Armand Assante, Sean Young, Kate Nelligan, Sherilyn Fenn, Christopher McDonald, James Remar, John Witherspoon, Tony Randall, Michael Cumpsty, Blake Clark. [PG-13]

Tepid spoof of film noirs and erotic thrillers; despite the title, Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct are referenced more obliquely than entire sub-plots borrowing from the likes of Double Indemnity and Cape Fear (others include Body Heat, Sleeping with the Enemy, the list goes on). Assante is both a cop and an attorney, which gives him time to catch criminals and then defend them, have a wife (Nelligan) who’s fooling around behind his back, fool around behind her back with a blonde femme fatale (Young), and overlook the advances of his secretary (Fenn). Too preoccupied with reworking famous sequences (instead of a boiled bunny, it’s a boiled skunk, but not really even that) that it forgets to forge even the thinnest of logical plot strands that can tie it all together—notice how paroled psycho “Max Shady” (Remar) keeps getting cutaways, but he disappears from the film without ever saying a single word to the person he’s stalking? A few amusing gags along the way—even a couple of sly verbal puns (“I’ll help you, Miss Cain, if I’m able”)—but far more groaners and dead patches. Bob Uecker, Bill Cobbs, Eartha Kitt, and Clarence Clemons (of E-Street Band fame) all have small roles.

41/100