Is "Fatale" A Fatally Flawed Modern Noir?

If you’re going to make a modern day noir thriller, you can go about it in a couple of ways. You can go the subtle route, and the result will be something akin to John Dahl’s Red Rock West, or you can spin the dial all the way to eleven, and get something like Paul Verhoeven’s over the top Basic Instinct, which has inspired a host of direct to video imitators. Fatale, starring Michael Ealy and Hilary Swank, leans towards the latter, and tosses in a generous helping of Fatal Attraction on the side.  Derrick Tyler runs a successful sports management agency with his partner and friend, Rafe Grimes. Derrick feels like the spark has gone out of his marriage, and that his wife Tracie may be having an affair. While the two friends are attending a bachelor party in Las Vegas, Derrick confides these feelings to Rafe, who encourages him to step outside of his current situation, and have some fun for just one night.

 Derrick meets a woman named Valerie at the bar, and lies about his name and marital status. They spend the night together. When Derrick tries to leave the next morning, he discovers she’s locked his phone in her hotel safe so he can’t “run out on her.” They end up having sex again before he departs. Derrick, who’s started to feel remorseful about his one night stand , returns home to California. He tries to reconcile with Tracie, and the two share a romantic evening together. That night, there’s an attempted break-in at their home, and Derrick fights off an intruder, who flees the scene. When the cops arrive to investigate, the detective assigned to the case (in one of those “only in this type of movie” coincidences) turns out to be Valerie, the woman Derrick slept with in Vegas.

Valerie initially relates to Derrick that revealing their affair is not on her agenda, as it could cause them both trouble. She’s in the middle of a custody battle with her ex-husband, and doesn’t want to rock the boat. But her behavior indicates quite the opposite. Valerie questions Tracie without Derrick present, and then indicates there are things he may not know about his own situation at home. Derrick and Rafe’s company is very valuable, and she hints the break-in could have been an “attempted hit.” Rafe has been pushing Derrick to sell the company to a big conglomerate, so is that what or who is behind this? As Valerie investigates the break-in, she discovers Rafe and Tracie are having an affair, and takes Derrick to a house where they’re spending time together.

Spoilers ahead: In true B-movie fashion, Rafe and Tracie turn up dead, and Derrick becomes the prime suspect. It turns out that Valerie killed them, and in return for this “favor,” she expects Derrick to kill her ex-husband. Her ex has been blocking her from having visitation rights with their daughter, because of an incident that occurred during their marriage, while Valerie was drinking. Thus begins an escalating battle of wits between Derrick and the clearly off-center Valerie, as he tries to stay out of jail, and also stay one step ahead of her, while Valerie keeps upping the ante in her efforts to ruin his life unless he helps her. Will Derrick actually go through with it, and kill Valerie’s ex, or will he able to expose her for the manipulative killer she really is?

Fatale is a by the numbers thriller that is mildly entertaining,  but never quite takes it to the next level. Some interesting ideas are introduced, and then those plotlines are left hanging or ignored. The revelation that Derrick’s partner Rafe is sleeping with his wife opens up some interesting story avenues., since Rafe has been hinting that he and Derrick should sell their company in order to make more money. Was Rafe behind the break-in at Derrick’s house, or was it Valerie? Did Valerie know who Derrick was before they met? Was it all a set-up from the get go? There’s also a whole subplot regarding Derrick’s cousin Tyrin, which seems to exist only to set that character up as a sacrificial lamb, and give Valerie someone else to kill.

The cast tries their best, and it’s fun to see Hilary Swank as a femme fatale, in a part that’s quite different from her usual roles. Michael Ealy does a nice job as Derrick, and Mike Colter (best known as Luke Cage on the Netflix series) does what he can with his limited screen time as Rafe. Damaris Lewis isn’t given a lot to do as Tracie, but she does have an effective moment in a pivotal scene. The film boasts some cool cinematography by the talented Dante Spinotti, and the direction by Deon Taylor is decent, if a bit workmanlike. The script by David Loughery, who penned the clever 1984 science-fiction thriller Dreamscape, never quite pushes things to the off the rails heights of Basic Instinct, nor does it bring the film into the territory of Body Heat or The Last Seduction, two of the best examples of neo-noir. Fatale is a passable time-filler, but sadly, the movie doesn’t really rise above the level of the plethora of erotic thrillers that turned up regularly on late night cable in the 1980s and 1990s . Here’s a link to the trailer for the film, which is currently streaming on HBO Max, and is also available on Blu-ra and DVD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPWURGgKJ7o.