I'm not so sure Carl Reiner (who is a funny guy) was the right person to direct this spoof of sex/crime thrillers, a genre that was probably in need of being parodied. Reiner was kind of an old school comedian coming out of the 1950's and 60's school of humor (Dick Van Dyke Show, Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar, etc).
Still, with all of the bad jokes there is some funny stuff in this film and a lot of clever ideas that really aren't developed because of the tendency to go for the cheap Airplane type of laughs. The whole idea of a bunch of oversexed women running around committing murder probably reached it's pinnacle with Basic Instinct and the sexed crazed killers in that film. Thinking about it, Basic Instinct seems mighty silly today.
The film features some pretty good looking women, who all appear to be pretty good sports about the whole thing. However the real reason to watch Fatal Instinct, is the actor Armond Assante who usually plays a lot of these kinds of hard boiled characters. In this film Assante really seems to be having a good time making fun of his screen image. His goofiness reaches some sort of silly high when he prances around in bright red high heels.
Carl Reiner is a funny guy and he is well aware how silly films like, Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct and Body Heat to name a few are. But playing the Zucker Brothers game was a mistake. Packing in as many gags and jokes as possible finally wears down the viewer and makes the film seem pretty stupid. Reiner would have been better taking a somewhat more restrained approach. However you can smell the influence of MGM studios who were looking for a hit and probably forced a lot of this stupid humor into the film.
91 minutes.
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