Fatale is a thriller film with a diverse cast. After a married, handsome sports agent has a one-night fling with a woman who wants more, he finds himself in a bind. When she shows up at his house as a detective to help him with a violent intruder, he realizes he's in bigger trouble than he thought. Caught trying to figure out who would want to harm him, there's danger around every turn and everyone has a motive.
Former college athlete Derrick (Michael Ealy) and his buddy Rafe (Mike Colter) are two aspiring entrepreneurs with a tricky decision ahead of them. Rafe wants to sell their budding company for millions of dollars to a much larger parent corporation, while Derrick thinks it's more ethical to keep their company for themselves so that they can support Black-owned businesses.
At a friend's bachelor party in Las Vegas, Rafe urges Derrick to take life easy, by which he also means making the difficult decision of cheating on Derrick's beautiful wife Traci (Damaris Lewis). One wrong turn later, and Derrick finds himself in bed with Detective Valerie Quinlan (Hilary Swank) in strikingly beautiful plainclothes.
But something is off about the straightforward affair the next morning when Derrick discovers that Valerie has locked his cell phone in her hotel safe - making him her temporary prisoner. Before he even leaves Vegas, he finds strings attached where they weren't supposed to be.
Safely back in his mansion in the Hollywood Hills, Derrick and his wife Traci wake up to an intruder breaking into their home. The situation escalates and turns violent when Derrick confronts the masked intruder. When the police arrive, the person leading the investigation is Detective Valerie Quinlan, who hints that she's met Derrick before. Derrick is unpleasantly surprised by this turn of events, but tries to play it cool.
Always finding reasons to show up at Derrick's home or work, Valerie further becomes a menacing threat to his business and marriage, all while supposedly helping him with his case. Along the way there are discoveries that everyone in Derrick's life is suspicious of something, and that everyone has a motive. So what can Derrick possibly do to keep everything together?
Directed by Deon Taylor (Meet the Blacks, Traffik) there's so much talent in his cast that ends up squandered on everyone's understated performances, which appear apathetic on the screen. In a film that relies on nuance to induce suspicion, there's not much direction for anyone involved to do anything other than raise their eyebrow and look around them, subtly wondering what's going on.
Written by David Loughery (The Intruder, Lakeview Terrace) there is a nice setup to Fatale, which could have made for a better film. A certain laziness translates into weak female characters with even weaker motives such as their alcoholism, or obsession driving them to do what they do. With characters that nobody cares about, it's an uphill battle to insert any intrigue about which of these scoundrels is the most villainous.
While everything may seem linear, there are actually plenty of little detours in which the characters are able to show their motives. Rather than just focus on one straightforward plot, there are little speed bumps along the way that distract from what should be the main attraction, rather than add to it. Yes, everyone has their reasons to harm Derrick, but it paints everyone in a dark light and leaves the audience without anyone to root for.
Despite an attractive and talented cast, along with a logical roadmap of a screenplay that leads them from 'A' to 'B,' there's nothing that particularly stands out in Fatale. Everything goes as expected, much to the detriment of the genre of the film: suspenseful guessing of what comes next is replaced with a colorful appreciation of the beauty of the people in fabulous clothes and the gorgeous places where they live.