Fatal Beauty

The cop movie got a lot of screen time during the '80s, bringing us such notable films as 48 HRS., Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon, even Police Academy—not to mention TV shows like Miami Vice or In the Heat of the Night (based on the 1967 Best Picture Oscar winner). In 1987, though, another cop movie landed in the theaters: Fatal Beauty, starring Whoopi Goldberg in her early career. When held up against these other cop movies (admittedly a rather high bar), Fatal Beauty isn't quite as memorable or as strong (in fact, it's a hell of a lot campier!), but despite this, it nevertheless proves to be a fun and enjoyable watch, as it offers plenty of memorable moments that showcase Whoopi at her comedic best.

It's interesting to note that Whoopi Goldberg started her acting career as a serious actress. She made her movie debut in The Color Purple, in which she was utterly fantastic. She was Oscar-nominated for that film, but didn't get a win until Ghost in 1990. So on a personal note, it puzzles me that she moved from serious drama to light-hearted comedy. That's not to say it's an unwelcome transition, mind you (because in her case, the transition worked!), but it kinda strikes me as par for the course for many Oscar-nominated actresses.

But anyway, Fatal Beauty.

Whoopi Goldberg stars as Rita Rizzoli, an LAPD detective whose hobby is taking down drug dealers. She even has a wall filled with the names of dealers, and crosses them off as soon as she takes one down. But at the opening of the film, Rita is on assignment: meeting up with a drug trafficker named Tito Delgadillo (the drag queen of all drag queens) and then busting him—only Rita's undercover and decked out as a hooker, donning the poofiest '80s wig money can buy, and the sight of the opening credits rolling to '80s music and Whoopi donning hooker garbs is so campy yet so hilarious. I can't quite explain it, but somehow the combination works so well. And Rita's flirtations with the bar's customers (i.e., them trying to pick her up), followed by Rita's marvellous "go away" messages, just add icing to the cake. I credit a lot of the hilarity to Whoopi. I mean, who else could respond, "No, wrap it in a taco!" so effectively to Cheech Marin's question, "Do you want your drink in a glass?"

To cut a long story short, her meeting with Delgadillo doesn't go quite as well as planned, and Delgadillo manages to escape back to his lair . . . only what he doesn't realize is that some hoods, Leo and Earl (the former played by Brad Dourif), looking to take over his operation are laying in wait for him. But what's worse, just before Leo and Earl bust in on Delgadillo and his crew, Delgadillo discovers that his new street drug, Fatal Beauty, has been improperly cut and will end up hitting the streets lethal.

After Delgadillo's hit, Rizzoli re-enters the fray, and begins to suspect that Delgadillo worked for someone she's been pursuing for some time: local real estate mogul Conrad Kroll. And against the advice of her CO, Rizzoli decides to pay Mr. Kroll a visit. Enter here a long-haired Sam Elliott as Mike Marshak, Kroll's head of security who takes a personal interest in Rizzoli, and you have the makings of a buddy comedy/romantic subplot. As the movie progresses, their pairing strikes me more as best friends rather than lovers, but Whoopi and Sam still have pretty good chemistry together.

I can't even begin to count the great lines and great scenes that Fatal Beauty offers up. Given Whoopi's comedic talents, I'm sure much of her own dialogue was improvised, but here are a few notables:

• Rizzoli getting a drug dealer alone in a locked room, pulling a gun on him as he turns around, and declaring, "One word, and I'm gonna clear your sinuses."
• Leo and Earl trying to intimidate some of Kroll's regular distributors—by having Earl start chewing on a glass bottle.
• The addict at Charlene's house who ends up taking about two dozen bullets, yet keeps walking towards the police barricade without slowing down.
• Rizzoli punching a female socialite through her living room window, then walks outside, crackling the glass under her feet, and reading the socialite her rights. It's literally a case of BOOM-CRASH-"You have the right to an attorney . . ."

Marshak had a few good lines, too. Like when he and Rizzoli look out into an empty hallway, and she asks where everyone's gone. Marshak responds with, "Maybe they got a whiff of your perfume."

Rizzoli's undercover work allows Whoopi free reign to showcase her comedic talents—particularly when she dons a costume! And believe me, some of them are pretty outrageous. Like when she goes downtown to find the pimp who supposedly looks like Richard Gere, she dresses up in a hilariously out-of-place gown and wig—out of place because they make her look like she's stepped out of the 1960s. The rest of the supporting cast is pretty good, too. Ruben Blades was fun to watch as Rizzoli's police friend Carl Jimenez (in something of a straightman role). And I get the impression that Brad Dourif began his typecasting here with this movie, as the bug-eyed scary guy. After seeing him here, in Lord of the Rings, and Mississippi Burning, just to name a few, it's almost hard to imagine that he got his start as the young, insecure, and sensitive Billy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

It's also interesting to note, for me at least, that Fatal Beauty came to the theaters right when drug awareness became a hot topic in the '80s. When watching Fatal Beauty, it's easy to recall Nancy Reagan's "Just say no" campaign, or those frying-egg commercials that claim, "This is your brain on drugs." Fatal Beauty isn't an anti-drug movie, but it does illustrate just how commonplace drug use really can be among teens, not to mention how drug trafficking can become an enormous moneymaking enterprise.

I'll give Fatal Beauty a 7.5. It's not the most perfect cop movie to come out of the '80s, and it is pretty damn campy and formulaic (e.g., the requisite love interest for our hero Rizzoli), but the fact that it somehow remains fun to watch earns it a place of respect for me.