Writer(s): Bharoocha, and Ellen Huggins
Starring: Mike Faiola, Dominique Swain, Michael Steger, and Tatyana Ali
We all have our favorite Hollywood
crushes. For most people, it’s the hugely popular Goslings’ or
Gadots’ of the world, if for no other reason than their wide reach
and massive exposure. Would you believe it if I told you that one of
my earliest crushes as a teen was none other than Dominique Swain,
star of Adrian Lyne’s adaptation of Lolita, from the novel by
Vladimir Nabokov?
Swain, as the jailbait femme fatale,
enraptured me in her role, to where I couldn’t take my eyes off of
her; she was beautiful (which I can say without being creepy because
I was thirteen when the movie came out, though I didn’t see it
until a couple of years later), and although she was just 14 years
old at the time of filming, managed to share the screen with Jeremy
Irons without being overpowered by him. That's a feat in and of
itself.
I can see almost everyone scratching
their heads right now: not necessarily because they're wondering how
in the world I could think she's cute, but simply out of complete
ignorance as to who she is. And I can't fault you for that, because,
unfortunately, the controversy of that movie—and, more
specifically, her role—seems to have been a curse, a death blow to
a once-promising career that has since been diminished to a
neverending series of thankless roles in countless B-movies (hey,
work is work, right?) She’s exactly the type of actress for which
MarVista roles were made, so it should come as no surprise that she
ended up in one called Fatal Flip. And having stumbled upon
that information, it should come as no surprise that I watched it.
In it, Swain plays Alex, a woman who
buys a rundown home, along with her boyfriend Jeff, in the hopes of
fixing it up to sell for a huge profit. The couple are hugely
confident that their investment—which has tied up all of their
available money—will reap big rewards, but the gravity of their
situation quickly settles in: although Jeff is a knowledgeable
handyman, he doesn’t know enough about plumbing or electrical work
to finish the project himself. And there's a pretty strict deadline
from purchase to sale before the interest kicks in on their credit
cards and threatens to rob them of any profit at all: 45 days.
With no money available to pay anyone,
they happen to meet Nate, a man who offers his services for free, in
exchange for a place to stay. You know the age-old saying “If it’s
too good to be true, it probably is?” Well, that would definitely
hold true for someone who offers to do countless hours of grueling
labor in exchange for virtually nothing. As it turns out (and this is
not a spoiler as it’s alluded to in the opening scene), Nate goes
around offering his services to couples in need, and then…seduces
the women, or something? And then kills them, or the guys, or...I
guess I’m not really sure what his MO is, honestly, but either way,
all you need to know is that he’s not a good guy.
Things take a turn for the worse when
Jeff is injured falling from a roof (an act of sabotage by Nate that,
refreshingly, goes uninvestigated). Unable to help the two
physically, he also seems unable to help the two mentally, as Alex
and Nate make quite a few decisions about the appearance of the house
without even consulting with the poor guy locked away in his room.
Aside from Alex, Jeff, and Nate, the
other main character is Roslyn (played by another childhood crush of
mine: Tatyana Ali, who played Ashley in “Fresh Prince”), Alex’s
good friend who’s also smitten with Nate. This leads to a weird
jealousy triangle where the writer doesn’t entirely seem to sure on
where to take it: one moment, Alex is vying for Nate’s attention,
then when she gets it, she acts offended that he would look at a
taken woman like that; she seems creeped out by him, yet still puts
herself in positions where they’re alone, and even has a one-on-one
dinner with him. Um...does she not realize she's clearly leading the
poor guy on, whether she thinks she is or not?
Roslyn's “competition” with Alex to
be the object of Nate's desires is another source of inconsistencies:
what starts off as a playful, innocuous “battle” between the two
for Nate's attention eventually leads to the dreaded “180-degree
character change” trope that we see too often in these movies,
where Roslyn is so consumed by her lust for Nate that she flaunts it
around as atonement for the college years, when Alex was popular and
got all the guys. Poor Ros meets her end the way she
lived—stupidly--when she goes snooping around Nate's room after
spending the night with him, and sees some things she shouldn't.
Can I break off for a second here: Why
do characters always snoop around in these movies, even when there's
no reason for them to? Here, there isn't even an inkling that
he's a psychopath until close to the end, meaning Ros is literally
just looking through his stuff because she's a nosey little bitch.
What could she possibly be hoping to find in this instance that would
lead her to look at all? A secret journal where he professes his love
for her and mentions his intent to marry her? I just fail to see any
logic in this whatsoever, save for the required advancement of the
plot through her murder.
Truthfully, outside of the minor
characters and amateurish writing, Fatal Flip actually isn't all
that terrible. It's bad, but at least competent in ways that can
overcome some of its obvious shortcomings: Dominique Swain, for all
the low-budget junk on her resume (Sharkansas Women's Prison
Massacre, for God's sake?!) is actually an accomplished actress
who can rise to, or above, the level of the material she is working
with. Here, she gives a capable performance, thanks in large part to
her ability to convey emotions through facial expressions, without
looking entirely stupid. Michael Steger as Jeff (who my wife
recognized from his role in the remake of “Beverly Hills: 90210”)
is also above-average, though he's largely relegated to a secondary
character by the halfway mark.
But this is a Lifetime production, and
at some point it's inevitable that all of the movie's weaknesses
(like, almost everything else) eventually become too great for
anything to overcome. In fact, looking back, it's almost as if the
decent acting is actually more of a negative, firmly entrenching the
movie in the uncomfortable netherworld between “merely bad” and
“bad but entertaining”: With a less experienced (or dedicated)
cast, this one could have been more enjoyable in that familiar “campy
cheese” kind of way these movies often excel in. Instead, there's
just enough competence within the production that it's just flat-out
boring and uninspired, rather than laugh out loud terrible; the
difference is that one of those is at least entertaining, and the
other isn't really worth your time at all.
STRAY OBSERVATIONS
- In what may actually qualify as “brilliant”, no one even notices that Ros is dead. (Jeff mentions not seeing her in a while and suggests Alex call her soon, but her body is never found onscreen.) While it might sound silly, it's actually pretty believable given the tight timeframe this movie takes place within.
- Why does Michael Steger's face look like he's wearing a mask of himself over top of his actual face? There's just something off about it, like it's stretched out or something, especially after my wife's adamant insistence that he is good looking in other roles. We'll blame it on his stupid hairstyle.
- Why do psychopathic characters always have to make things blatantly obvious? Case in point: Nate, who constantly makes his true intentions known by intently staring at Alex for uncomfortably long periods of time.
- I mentioned it already, but Alex's flip-flopping is anger-inducing: one moment she smiles as he intensely stares her down, then the next time she's grossed out: repeat that cycle about a dozen times.
- Honestly, there's the structure of a good movie in here somewhere.
RATING: 4/10
TRAILER
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