Fatal Beauty (1987)

Fatal Beauty (1987)- * * *

Directed by: Tom Holland

Starring: Whoopi Goldberg, Sam Elliot, Harris Yulin, Mike Jolly, Brad Dourif, Cheech Marin, M.C. Gainey, James Le Gros, and Ruben Blades







***1200th Review!***

Rita Rizzoli (Whoopi) is an L.A. undercover cop with a sassy attitude.  So far, so Whoopi. Things get very un-Whoopi-like when a shipment of a hot new drug called Fatal Beauty hits the streets. Its mixture of cocaine, PCP, and God-knows-what-else is so deadly and destructive, it’s turning obese men of color into unstoppable zombies. 

When the Whoopster traces the drug cartel back to criminal mastermind Conrad Kroll (Yulin) - and you know he’s evil because his name is Conrad Kroll - she wants answers and justice. Kroll’s head of security, Mike Marshak (Elliott) at first tries to keep Rita away from his employer, but soon is following her around town on her adventures like a puppy dog. Eventually, the two unlikely heroes team up to fight under-baddies such as Leo Nova (Dourif) and Earl (Jolly). What hijinks will Whoopi come up with next? Will it mix well with drug-fueled violence? Find out today!

Much like how in the great Collision Course (1989), Jay Leno shot people and beat them up, here fellow comedian Whoopi Goldberg does more of the same. The 80’s were the golden time for the action comedy - Red Heat (1988) and Action Jackson (1988) come to mind as parallels here, but the obvious comparison is Beverly Hills Cop (1984). There are many comparisons to be made, right down to both having a Harold Faltermeyer score, and we won’t bore you by running down the list of similarities, but let’s just say this: Fatal Beauty is a surprisingly entertaining and fast-paced jaunt with a great cast, wonderful 80’s vibe, and a wisecracking Whoopi. That’s a pretty nice package if we do say so ourselves. 

As regular readers know, we always enjoy when an unorthodox star tries their hand at action, and we applaud Whoopi for playing against type as an Italian-American (?) cop with her finger on the trigger.

Speaking of unorthodox, the main baddie, played by Harris Yulin, is mainly known to us as co-star of Short Fuse (1986) - remember when Art Garfunkel had a Short Fuse? We certainly do, and if you think Whoopi was an unusual choice, that’s nothing compared to that inspired casting decision. 

John P. Ryan is a sort of under-the-radar fan favorite of ours, having appeared in Avenging Force (1986) and Delta Force 2 (1990) among many others, and here he plays the WYC (or White Yelling Chief) who is always riding Whoopi but knows she gets results. Sam Elliott’s mustache is comforting, Ruben Blades is wry, Brad Dourif is unhinged, James Le Gros and M.C. Gainey are in the mix as well, and Cheech Marin has a cameo as a bartender. We haven’t seen a cameo like that since Whoopi was in Beverly Hills Brats (1989). Maybe we should say Fatal Beauty is a cross between Beverly Hills Cop and Beverly Hills Brats.

It all ends with a pretty cool mall shootout, and it should also be noted that there are plenty of racial slurs that most likely would not be in the script today. That’s just one extra element that preserves the 80’s vibe. Director Tom Holland does indeed keep things moving, and that may come from a background in horror movies - he’s probably best known for Fright Night (1985) and Child’s Play (1988). Interestingly, in further comparisons with Action Jackson, they both have an end-credits song by Madame X.

Fatal Beauty, at this point in history, could fairly be called (what we have termed) a ‘Video-Store Classic’. You know how we’re always asking about the more obscure titles, “who actually rented this?”, well, we know people actually rented Fatal Beauty. And they probably had a good time watching it, as we did, and you more than likely will too.

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett

Short Fuse (1986)

 Short Fuse (1986)-* * *

AKA: Good To Go

Directed by: Blaine Novak

Starring: Art Garfunkel, Harris Yulin, Robert DoQui, and Richard Brooks









In Washington, D.C. in the 1980’s, Go-Go music was huge. Go-Go is an urban cross between funk, R&B, soul and dance music with extended songs meant for the largely African-American audiences to dance the night away to. Some of the most famous practitioners of this genre of music include Trouble Funk, Redd & The Boys, and Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers. Max (DoQui) is a music impresario and label head who is trying to make this music go global and has a large record deal in the works for Redd & The Boys.  

Spoiling this dream, a rape and murder occurs outside a club that caters to the music, called, you guessed it, The Go-Go. Or did it? Trying to get to the truth, alcoholic newspaper reporter S.D. Blass (Garfunkel) calls Chief Harrigan of the local police precinct. Harrigan leads Blass to believe Chemist (Brooks) was involved in the crime. But along the way, Blass befriends Chemist’s little brother Beats (Daughtry) and begins to question Harrigan and his motivations. After a lot of chaos and confusion, Blass begins to sort things out - but he’s going to have to do it fast before a race riot occurs in D.C. Can he do it?

Please read in a gravelly, portentous, gravely serious Don LaFontaine-like movie trailer announcer voice: Art Garfunkel. Has a: SHORT FUSE. Coming this summer. When we think of actors that could be chosen for the lead role in a movie entitled Short Fuse, names like Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson or Jason Statham come to mind. But for some reason yet to be fathomed by mankind, they chose noted badass Art Garfunkel for the role. And true to form, in this movie he’s such a wet noodle that he makes Toby from The Office look like The Ultimate Warrior. But in all fairness, this movie was originally titled Good To Go (and characters do say that a lot and there’s a song of the same name on the soundtrack as well).  Adding weirdness to inappropriateness, the main thrust of this movie is urban, street-level crime, in the era of boomboxes, graffiti and Kangol hats. Again...Art Garfunkel? But seriously, we could see what they were thinking because “Bridge Over Troubled Water” has some fresh beats.

And if they were so gung-ho for Garfunkel, why hire Harris Yulin as the only other White guy in the cast? They look very, very similar. So much so it’s hard to tell them apart in some scenes. But the tell is Garfunkel’s bizarre combover. It makes Donald Trump’s look positively normal by comparison. Plus the movie has a lot of product placement for Pepsi. It’s practically a 90-minute commercial for Pepsi. But it’s hard to imagine the Pepsi people being very happy that a movie about a drug-fuelled rape and murder with a bunch of shootouts and car crashes is so tied in with their product.  That observation aside, by far the best thing about Short Fuse is not, as you might expect, the length of the fuse of one Arthur Ira Garfunkel. It’s the music!

In all seriousness, the soundtrack and the live performances are uniformly excellent. All the bands mentioned above are excellent, both musically and from a showmanship perspective. We really were dancing in our seats! As a concert film documenting the Go-Go phenomenon, Short Fuse is actually an important “Art”-ifact. Robert DoQui, who was in Diplomatic Immunity (1991), and resembles Richard Roundtree but is an accomplished actor in his own right, is always worth seeing, as is future Law & Order star Richard Brooks, who also appeared in Shakedown (1988). Short Fuse is listed in some sources as a “concert drama” and seems to be little-seen, even though it was released on the Vidmark label. But the cast, as well as the musical performances keep it from ever getting boring.

Witness Art put the “funk” in “Garfunkel” and watch this oddity today!

Comeuppance Review by: Ty and Brett