Fatal Instinct (1993) - ★★★

What do you get when you cross the films Basic Instinct, Sleeping With the Enemy and Cape Fear? A hilarious spoof of the suspense thrillers from the late 80's early 90's era. For me it was a laugh a minute movie with great comedic timing from all actors. It stayed true to the movies it was making fun of by incorporating some of the great scenes within and made them look ridiculously funny, which is not an easy feat to create.

Armande Assante plays a cop and a lawyer by the name of Ned Ravine. His profession is balanced through fighting crime and ridding the streets of criminals by night and defending them in court the next day. While this doesn't sound funny, Assante makes it comical with his constant poker face of serious expressions and leveled voice. His wife Lana has a hare-brained plot to kill him to attain his life insurance, which pays out triple if he's shot on a train and drowns in a river. It would be childish humour to many, but the absurdity of it all is what makes this story so darn entertaining. Ned's assistant Laura is a perfectionist and freaks out through flashbacks of her abusive past when something is out of place. She has a small rivalry with a woman that Ned had an affair with, Lola Cain, who has a habit of getting things stuck to her shoe. All the while a man is on a mission to kill ned after he arrested then unsuccessfully defended him in court, ending in him serving ten years in prison.

With all these different side-stories, it is easy for a movie to look and feel cluttered. This film is more than just slapstick humour because it pulls so many serious movies into the one story and manages to make it funny throughout. Although at times the skits seemed repetitive and I lost interest toward the end, I have to say that it is one of the few movies that can have me laughing to the point of getting light headed. This sort of humour generally does not appeal to the masses, but this movie was something different. I believe it is the funniest spoof comedy since Airplane! In 1980.