Carl Reiner’s penultimate movie, Fatal Instinct, found him trying out the Mel Brooks-ian spoof genre, taking on the film noir and erotic thriller genres. Armand Assante plays a lawyer defending a case involving femme fatale Lola Cain (hilariously cast Sean Young) when he discovers that one of his losing cases is getting out of jail will be stalking him. Meanwhile, his wife is having an affair with the mechanic and wants to off him so she can get his insurance money. Yes, it’s Cape Fear meets Double Indemnity with a large handful of Body Heat and Fatal Attraction for good measure.

The jokes of Fatal Instinct are in the tone of Brooks’ Hitchcock spoof, High Anxiety, where he plays up the absurd to point out the hilarity. At times, Reiner goes off the rails, losing control of the reality that makes spoofs so delirious, but Instinct has many inspired sequences (such as a particularly inspired Body Heat sequence) to cover its various shortcomings.

Even though the humor is inspired enough to be funny to a 13 year old (it is PG-13) who hasn’t seen the source material, it is funnier the more of the source material you’ve gone through. Sherilyn Fenn does a great turn as Assante’s secretary with feminine instincts, and somehow the Christopher McDonald and Kate Nelligan as the mechanic and wife play off each other in their own particular brand of movie.

In the end, Fatal Instinct is a little ramshackle, a little eager to please, and a lot silly. It’s a lot of fun.

Fatal Instinct airs at 2:35pm on Showtime Extreme