Fatal Beauty

Fatal Beauty (1987)

Runtime: 104 minutes

Directed by: Tom Holland

Starring: Whoopi Goldberg, Sam Elliott, Brad Dourif, Harris Yulin

From: MGM

This was not what I was planning on watching when I was thinking of what to see or what to talk about tonight. But, late Wednesday night I saw it was on MGMHD so I figured it was about time to see it. The plot description is coming up, then what I wrote about it on Letterboxd, with some added info. I will be back Sunday night.

From the IMDb: "Rita Rizzoli is a narcotics police officer with a plethora of disguises. When a drug shipment is hijacked, the thieves don't know that the drug is unusually pure (and also laced with PCP) and packs of "Fatal Beauty" begin turning up next to too many dead bodies. Mike Marshak works for the original owner of the drugs and tries to tell himself that since he does not handle the drugs, he is "clean". Mike becomes Rita's constant companion as the drug hijackers (who are nearly psychotic and very well armed) are hunted, while more and more bodies continue to turn up."

If you want to know why I watched this random 80's movie Wednesday night, it was because it was on MGMHD... and I remember from I believe the VHS tape of Spaceballs the trailer for the film being played right at the beginning. Yet, despite remembering that I never actually saw the movie until now. It having a not so hot reputation was a reason why.

After viewing it, maybe I am being generous because I expected worse or because of how much an 80's movie it is, I thought it was fine and decent enough for a 3 star rating.

Believe me, it is SUCH an 80's film, from the fashion to the music, from the plot to how all the racial and sexist comments fly. Oh man, you definitely won't hear comments like that in modern films. Whoopi Goldberg's character being called a “bitch” (which her character, hilariously named RITA RIZZOLI; allegedly, CHER was the original choice for the role, which would explain the name) by the bad guys is one thing; you hear some of her police officer co-workers utter constant racial and sexist remarks about her and while she fired back and lambasted them with witty comebacks, I was quite surprised to hear such language being uttered casually, then I remembered the decade this was made (not that I could ever forget it, you're constantly reminded of it being the decade of excess and cocaine).

This tale of Whoopi and Sam Elliott, they're a wacky pairing who don't always get along... yep, it's like an 80's buddy cop comedy. The strong anti-drug message (especially with a monologue you hear for a few minutes) will remind you of the Nancy Reagan Just Say No mantra that was a huge deal back during this time period.

There's also a cast of familiar faces, which in my eyes was an asset. There's small roles for M.C. Gainey and Cheech Marin, and there's also Ruben Blades, John P. Ryan, and James Le Gros.

The fact that the director was Tom Holland (more of a horror guy than anything else; he wrote Psycho II and did the original Fright Night) was nice too.

While I admit that certain things could have been done differently or better, this was not the painful experience I feared it was going to be. Whoopi is not so far fetched to me as a police officer and I laughed enough at all the funny moments to be entertained. The action was not great but it wasn't poorly done either. Some people get slaughtered, for sure. If you enjoy this genre of movies (and also, if you enjoy being amused by this decade in general) then I say it's worth a look, even if there's definitely better 80's buddy cop comedies out there. I mean, there certainly are plenty of bad 80's buddy cop comedies out there too.