“I don’t look as dumb as I am.”

Justin’s rating: Well, I guess I could take a stab at reviewing this

Justin’s review: There are a lot of things that endear me to the ’90s, and one of them is a goofy commitment to churning out spoofs of pretty much every movie genre under the sun. There were your high-profile successes (Naked Gun 2 1/2, Hot Shots!), your respectable mid-tier efforts (Loaded Weapon 1, Jane Austen’s Mafia!), your Mel Brooks productions (Men in Tights, Dracula: Dead and Loving It), and your bottom-of-the-barrel duds (Spy Hard, Plump Fiction). The odds were 2:1 that Leslie Nielsen would be in any given one, but such wasn’t the case for 1993’s Fatal Instinct.

Reacting to the rise of erotic thrillers — and Basic Instinct in particular — Fatal Instinct took an ice pick stab at turning this more seedy brand of film noir into something funny. My question going fresh into this was, where does it rate in the pantheon of ’90s spoofs?

Armand Assante (whom I mostly know as the bad guy from Judge Dredd) plays Ned Ravine, a slightly oblivious guy who’s both a cop and a lawyer. His life is even more complicated than you think: His wife Lana (Kate Nelligan) is cheating on him with Shooter McGavin, his latest client Lola (Sean Young) is majoring in femme fatale, and his assistant Laura (Sherilyn Fenn) is desperately in love with him.

In addition to the obvious inspiration, this movie pokes fun at Cape Fear, Sleeping with the Enemy, Fatal Attraction, Double Indemnity, Body Heat, 9 1/2 Weeks, and more. You know, the kinds of movies that would mess up the sexual development of a teenager who only had these as role models. Not that I would know.

There’s also a brilliant bit where a courthouse trial is treated like a football game, complete with commentary by the venerable Bob Eueker, cheerleaders, a marching band, and a recess break that is actually recess.

Honestly, this isn’t a half-bad time — it does a lot with tossing goofy events against characters playing it as straight-faced as possible, there are some genuinely funny quotes and gags, and this was certainly at the right time to piggy-back on the erotic thriller. So why did it completely flame out?

You could argue that Assante wasn’t a household name who didn’t really project “comedic powerhouse” — although he does acquit himself really well as a Dragnet-style cop who has no problem firing out Frank Drebin monologues with the best of them. And every scene with Christopher McDonald as an adulterous auto mechanic is pure gold.

But I think the real issue is that nobody was clamoring for a spoof in this genre. These kinds of movies weren’t that popular, widespread, or trope-ridden to be a fertile field for spoofery. Plus, trying to market a PG-13 comedy to families that’s based on hard R-rated sex thrillers is not a way to go for huge profits — as its $7.8 million box office demonstrated.

While it was a bad idea, Fatal Instinct is actually well executed. I experienced enough unforced laughs to feel that this wasn’t wasting my time. It does feel a bit like a Naked Gun spin-off, and I mean that as a compliment.

Intermission!

• You can eat shaved ice through stockings
• The saxaphone player shadowing the cop for some mood music
• “Who can say no to a wiener?” “Not me.”
• “Look out, he’s got a weenie!”
• OK I laughed at the bumper car chase
• Criminals hate it when you use scientific theories on them
• “It’s just the postman, he always rings twice.”
• Towels can be terrifying
• Law Book and Cop Book
• She is really prepared for a presentation
• “When you’re a cop, you’ve seen it all, and you know how babies are made.”
• The waking up scene is a pretty inspired bit of physical comedy
• “You all right? That was a very long flashback there.”
• They really do run that shoe gag into the ground
• Kamikazee Katra Suma
• Sean Young can really cross her eyes
• Ew wet black socks in the tub
• Rosie O’Donnell as a parret keeper — what a loud scene
• “Hubba!”
• Christopher McDonald really sold that hat flip
• “Speak Yiddish!”
• “You speak Yiddish?” “No, but I can read subtitles.”
• “I suppose you were tied up.” “Only part of the time.”
• [lifting up a skunk] “It’s sort of like a cat!” “It’s not enough like a cat.”
• “Doesn’t Mr. Pokey want to go exploring?”
• The bad guy wearing a fancy hat and smiling
• “Boy does she look stupid in that hat.”
• Their inner monologues stepping on each other’s lines: “No, you go first!”
• Ugh, bloody man-butt
• The killer losing his rifle due to it being checked as baggage on the train
• Skunks like going on rollercoasters
• “The wind shouldn’t be a factor unless someone cuts one!”
• That recess break looks amazing: “I love recess!”
• The cops posing for the crime scene photographer
• All the guys slipping in the background shouldn’t be quite as funny it ends up being