cult film freak: CHARLES GRODIN AND FARRAH FAWCETT BASKING IN 'SUNBURN'

Sunburn poster resembling Killer Fish circa 1979 Rates: **

Around the time Farrah Fawcett and husband Lee Majors produced his KILLER FISH in sunny Brazil, she went to sunnier Acapulco in an action-comedy almost entirely lacking humor; and yet, helmed by VANISHING POINT director Richard C. Sarafian, the action sequences are pretty good along with neat shots of the glistening locale with a scantily-clad Farrah who, having just left CHARLIE'S ANGELS, was so hot/popular that anything she starred in could pass as Exploitation Cinema, although SUNBURN is mostly a mainstream venture juggling too many characters while losing focus on the main plot: A rich old man's car crash might not be accidental, and his insurance company has to reluctantly shell out 5M...

So Grodin, supposedly a troublesome private eye, is sent with Fawcett as his fake wife... But there's hardly any trouble or suspense surreptitiously investigating the man's family that includes a lusty Joan Collins and the dead man's kids in a quaint Joan Goodfellow and her playboy brother. Meanwhile, Art Carney... as a gumshoe's gumshoe mentor... gets lost in a mix of neo noir crime and chaos wherein, since Grodin plays it so dry he hardly seems there at all, only Fawcett really shines... Which was obviously this film's backup plan that ultimately becomes pretty much everything.