Fatal Beauty (1987)

I love this movie so much

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

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.

Whoopi fails again in this preposterous film in which she plays a narcotics cop who takes on a gang of drug hijackers by making disguises that are just plain silly. But that's nothing compared to the film's sophomoric humor and a pointless plot. A pure waste of a movie that even makes BURGLAR look good. Quite possibly the worst of Whoopi's films.0 out of 5

Goldberg-movies in generally are not so good and I have accept that but this is too much. This movie is in my short list of terrible movies. I just can`t understand why they do so stupid movies like this. Whoopi is not funny, period. 2/10

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!