Fatal Beauty

With a title likes this, starring actress Whoopi Goldberg would you believe me if I told you this was a searing crime film of a L.A. undercover cop tracking down a drug dealer dealing a lethal tainted cocaine known as 'Fatal Beauty'. Probably not, but this is far from a comedy, despite some humorous exchanges and low-grade dialogues. Offsetting it is its drama and violence, which can be forcefully preachy and visually jarring. Still the script remains moronic and bloated, despite its good intentions and edginess. A fitting Goldberg portraying a female version of Dirty Harry but with wisecracks and flaunting a pink Cadillac to show her lighter side, goes about her job in almost a rogue manner, getting on the bad side of her bosses (played with vigour by John P Ryan) and waging a personal war against an Los Angeles drug ring. Brad Dourif plays the smarmy drug dealer and he brings a mean intensity, although I wished he had more screen time than he had. But he does get an explosive climatic cat and mouse shootout with Goldberg. Wonder if this performance convinced Holland to use him for his following feature "Childs Play." Yep that's right, Tom Holland (better known for his horror films; "Fright Night" & "Thinner") directs this straight-laced, violent formula with predictable results. Still he manages to keep it moving with fineness, using locations to good affect and resourceful in delivery the tough action in spades. Acting across from Goldberg is Sam Elliott, but his weakly pitched character (bodyguard) is little more than a distraction and there for Goldberg's character to open up to. Also in the cast are Ruben Blades and Harris Yulin with some of these performances almost being played with mock seriousness. An action-comedy that doesn't all come together.

Rita Rizzoli (Whoopi Goldberg) is going to put the drug king out of business who is producing a deadly drug that's killing people off at an alarming rate. The drug king's top security man, Mike Marshak (Sam Elliott), takes a shine to Rita, although we aren't sure why. I spent the entire film thinking he might be an undercover cop -not so. Had it been any other actor besides Elliott I think this flaw might have prevented the film from being believable. But Elliott, and his cool, understated style just swept me away with his obvious attraction to Rita. There are some very moving moments, some frighteningly real back alley scenes of drug dealings and shootout after shootout. I didn't know what to expect with this film, and was hoping Whoopi would sail with it. She did!

A good movie that was overlooked and deserves more recognition. A forgotten movies from the 80's. Especially when it was sandwiched between 2 other Tom Holland movies such as FRIGHT NIGHT and CHILD'S PLAY.

I do love what Whoopi Goldberg does with her character Rizzoli as an undercover narcotics cop. But the term Fatal Beauty is for a certain deadly designer drug that she is tracking down the source of. Nevertheless Whoopi proves to be quite fatal to any number of the characters in the film.

But this film suffers from a really muddled script and the distinct possibility that the several bad guys who want this shipment of this nasty Fatal Beauty stuff are imbibing a bit too much of it themselves. Whoopi's target is Harris Yulin a big New Orleans contractor who is deep in the narcotics trade unofficially. But Yulin himself has troubles in his own ranks.

Sam Elliott's character as Yulin's bodyguard and enforcer is also a mystery. I couldn't figure out what his function is as he keeps saving Goldberg.

Whoopi is fun to watch especially slugging it out with rich society woman Jennifer Warren. But the film is just too murky.

As i see it there are a number of major flaws in this movie. The three major ones are this:

• a movie like dirty harry was reviled by critics who called it fascist (a word they use to describe anything they dislike or politically disagree with) for it's portrayal of police sidestepping or ignoring the constitutional rights of the criminals in the movie. What then are we to make of this movie which features numerous egregious violations of such perceived "rights". Did any critics refer to this as fascist? Don't be silly, of course they didn't. But you can watch this back to back with dirty harry and decide for yourself which of the two skirts the law more.

• the movie hinges on the notion of whoopi goldberg being a highly desirable woman. Even in her thinner youth, i don't think you'd find a man who's first thought about whoopi goldberg would be "attractive"

hence any scenes that require that fall flat and leave the viewer wondering "what universe are these people living in?"

• the tone of the movie is all over the place. On one hand it's trying to cash in on beverly hills cop.... and whoopi never had quite the charisma to substitute for eddie murphy. On the other hand it's trying to be dramatic, but that is undermined by ridiculous and unbelievable stock characters like the angry police captain, the superfluous sidekick, and the evil corporate mastermind. Combine that with the convenient way that every time a character has a chance to finish off whoopi.... they inexplicably hesitate for exaggerated body movements.

A good cast is wasted in what ultimately seems like it was partially rewritten as a star vehicle for whoopi.