Fatal Instinct

Fatal Instinct is a 1993 American sex comedy thriller film directed by Carl Reiner. A parody of the erotic thriller genre, which at the time had reached its commercial peak, as well as being a pastiche of 1940s film noir and psychological thriller genres, in particular Double Indemnity, the film stars Armand Assante as lawyer/cop Ned Ravine (a take-off on Body Heat, in which William Hurt plays the similarly named Ned Racine) who has an affair with a woman named Lola Cain (Sean Young). Kate Nelligan stars as Ned's wife and Sherilyn Fenn stars as his secretary. The film title is a combination of Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct, both of which starred Michael Douglas. Plot Ned Ravine, who is both a police officer and lawyer (who often defends the people he arrests), believes that he knows everything about women, and says that he will throw away his badge if anyone ever proves him wrong. While on a stakeout, he encounters a seductive woman named Lola Cain; the next day, Lola shows up at his law office, saying that she needs him to look over some papers she has come across. Meanwhile, Max Shady, who was just released from prison after seven years, starts stalking Ned, planning to kill him for failing to successfully defend Max in court. Ned's wife Lana and her car mechanic Frank, with whom she is having an affair, start plotting to kill Ned in order to collect on his accident insurance, which has a triple indemnity rider; if Ned is shot, falls from a northbound train, and drowns in a freshwater stream, Lana will collect nine million dollars. Lola gets Ned to come to her house to examine the "papers", which are actually a laundry receipt and an expired lottery ticket, and the two of them end up having sex in various wild ways. The next morning, Ned says that they can never do that again because he loves his wife; this drives Lola to start stalking Ned.