I'm not gonna lie, I'm always a sucker for a Lifetime movie. It's that sterile, cut-rate suck-you-in factor that I'm looking for. Infidelity Can Be Fatal, well it's a hit-or-miss checklist of all things Uncorked. There's no murderous psycho to deal with, no wow factor twist, and no real conniving manipulation. There is however, that annoying best bud, sheer set locations, and some deep, sultry sexy stuff that with the music inserted, is almost kinda daft.
"Fatal" is directed by Danny J. Boyle. No not the guy who helmed Slumdog Millionaire, that's Danny without the J. Boyle's film is about a female private investigator who is hired to follow her client's wife only to get followed herself while getting romantically involved with said client. Um, did you get all that?
Infidelity Can Be Fatal weaves different plot lines as if Alfred Hitchcock himself was "rear windowing" the potboiler affairs. Every scene feels like a clue, every camera angle a mild POV, every persona a red-herring suspect. "Fatal" is involving for most of the way but there are times when it's also sort of blandly confusing. When the end credits roll up you wonder why "Fatal" didn't jump off the screen like it should. I mean it's like a whodunit that you keep asking to yourself, "who dun what?"
"Fatal" stars Lanie McAuley, Matthew MacCaull, Carly Fawcett, and Sasha Piltsin. Heard of these guys? Well me neither. Their acting is anywhere from overly dramatic to reactive to middling. Their characters range from obvious thriller tags to overt stereotypes. In terms of Lifetime thespianism, yeah that's par for the course.
Bottom line: Infidelity Can Be Fatal isn't as trashy and nutrition-less as something a la David DeCoteau but it's also not as razor-sharp as stuff like 2019's The Husband and/or A Sister's Revenge. In this case "infidelity can be mixed".
