Hilary Swank can elevate noirish “Fatale” only so high
★★ ★★ Rated R. 102 minutes. In theaters.
Its opening moments suggest “Fatale” may be alarmingly bad.
“I was always the smart one, the one who played to win,” the noir thriller’s lead character, Michael Ealy’s Derrick, says in narration mostly absent from the rest of the affair. “I was damn good at it — I was the best. But then I took my eye off the ball, and, just like that, the rules changed. I was no longer playing to win. This was a new game. I’m playing for my life now.”
Wow. That is rough.
And considering “Fatale” was penned by screenwriter David Loughery — credited with scripting 1989’ s “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier,” considered by many to be the worst of the “Trek” films — you don’t really expect things will get better.
They do, though — if only marginally.
Most importantly, “Fatale” isn’t the tale of the jilted lover its trailer would have you believe, at least not exactly. It’s a bit more complicated than it appears, even if the Dean Taylor- directed affair never rises from guilty- pleasure territory.
It certainly offers some eye candy in the form of the enviable Los Angeles home shared by Derrick and his wife, Tracie ( Damaris Lewis), complete with an amazing view of the city and an absolutely heavenly looking infinity edge pool. ( His sports car also is the thing of dreams.)
Derrick is a former highlevel college athlete who, with partner Rafe ( Mike Colter of “Luke Cage”), has built a successful sports agency. In playing to win, however, Derrick has somewhat neglected his marriage, and the late nights Tracie is spending out of the house — allegedly for work — concern him.
When he and Rafe attend a bachelor party in Las Vegas, the latter convinces the former to take off his wedding ring and to forget about being married while they’re there.
It’s not long after that he finds himself at the bar hitting it off with a woman named Val (Hilary Swank) — he says his name is Darren — who says she regularly takes a “therapeutic getaway” to Sin City to escape her high- stress job in another town.
They spend the night together. While attempting to leave the next morning — for what he says is a flight home to Seattle — he learns she has locked his phone in the hotel room’s safe. She demands more fun from him before he can have the combination, grab the phone and bounce.
Back home, Derrick is attacked in his house by a masked intruder, whom he manages to fight off and scare away from the property. When the cops arrive to investigate the incident, wouldn’t you know it? Val is the detective in charge of the case.
Is this a coincidence or is Val somehow involved with the break- in? This obviously capable cop seems surprised to see Darren, er, Derrick, but immediately goes about making him squirm with vague comments in front of Tracie, so we, like Derrick, feel as though we’re playing from behind, to borrow lingo the character would use.
The best thing about the script by Loughery — whose credits also include 1992’ s “Passenger 57” and last year’s ‘ The Intruder,” also directed by Taylor and starring Ealy — is it does a reasonably good job of keeping you guessing as to what really is happening.
The movie is fortunate to have Swank, who seems to be enjoying doing the femme- fatale thing for a change.
Ultimately, though, “Fatale” is kind of silly, a movie to take in while you devour a big bowl of popcorn.
Just be thankful you won’t need to swallow much more of that narration.