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Movie Review: Fatale

Mike Tyrkus

There is nothing remotely entertaining about any aspect of the new thriller Fatale, starring Michael Ealy and Hilary Swank. It is a film that ultimately has nothing new to add to the genre nor does it feign to even be a competent entry to the same.

Following a passionate one-night affair, Derrick (Ealy) is subject to watching his supposed perfect life slip away as the other woman, Valerie (Swank), who intwines herself into his life via a murder investigation that threatens to unravel his entire life.

Unfortunately, that is about as interesting as the film ever manages to get. This apparent Fatal Attraction (1987) wannabe never finds anything resembling solid footing as it plows through its overly expository first act to set up the illicit affair between the two main characters, forgoing even the pretense of likability in any of the principle characters.

Director Deon Taylor, whose previous film, 2019’s Black and Blue at least benefitted from being a mildly entertaining genre film, seems lost (or perhaps bored) in a swirling morass of human failings and emotions with Fatale. Sadly, it is easy to understand why since, for a supposed thriller, there is absolutely nothing tense or remotely suspenseful about anything that occurs onscreen through the excruciatingly long 102-minute running time this film is afforded. Much of that too must fall on screenwriter David Loughery who, among other similarly questionable credits was responsible for writing Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989).

Hilary Swank and Michael Ealy in “Fatale.”

Add to the mix an often intrusive and off-putting score by Geoff Zanelli, some rather lackluster cinematography work from Dante Spinotti, and uninspired editing from both Eric L. Beason and Peck Prior and Fatale becomes simply a colossal yawn. That is before you even start to think about how talent such as Swank and Ealy’s is completely wasted on this haphazard tale of unwanted affection. Both actors have done far better work than is present here and one would hope that both would do so again in the future.

There have been many films before Fatale that explore the consequence of extramarital affairs. Many have been quite awful, though some have been rather good, but none have been as uninteresting or as tedious as Fatale.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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