Customer Rating: 
Summary: I should have won a prize for making it all the way through this
Comment: Melissa Crider stars as a 28 or so year old woman named Tess. The movie starts by showing her marriage go sour and how violent her husband is. She finds a body part hidden in the house and calls the cops and they find out he killed many women. After being arrested, the husband immediately escapes and seeks revenge on his wife. Kadeem Hardison plays a cop and sends Tess to learn self defense from Marc Dacascos.
The story itself is bad, but the acting is pretty good. Melissa Crider is pitiful, but Dacascos is good, and the husband (played by Tim Abell) does some very good work. And that is literally the only good thing about the movie. There is no real training except for Tess learning to use a gun. The story just drags along while Tim Abell performs very well in badly directed scenes.
Since at least 90% of the stuff I watch is fighting movies, I can excuse a bad story and bad directing. Like I said, the acting is pretty good, so I was hoping for some good action, and I would be happy. The fights are shot so close up and are so choppy that it becomes aggravating to watch. I liked the final fight, but 2 or 3 good scenes does not make a movie. The last straw for me was when Tess is pointing a gun at an armed man, and after all her training, she holds her gun sideways. I don't remember her learning any sideways gun techniques, but I will admit I had a hard time paying attention for most of the movie.
1.5/5
DVD from DEJ Productions is full screen and picture quality is not bad, but could be better. Sound is fine. There is a Spanish language track included.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Horrid adaptation of an awesome novel
Comment: If you want proof of how Hollywood manages to take excellent novels and ruin them in the adaptation process, watch "Instinct to Kill." Based on Lisa Gardner's riveting psychological novel, "The Perfect Husband," the only thing the producers managed to retain are the names of a couple of the characters. The basic plot of the story - girl marries an alluring cop to escape her abusive family only to be abused herself, oh and her husband just happens to be a serial killer whom she turns into the cops. He escapes from prison and wants to kill her, so she enlists the aid of a mercenary-type to train her to defend herself.
All other traces of Gardner's plot are nonexistent in a ridiculously lame and poorly acted film, which appears to be nothing more than a mediocre vehicle to display star Mark Dacascos's karate moves, which were bested by the cheesy villain in each fight. And don't get me started on the inept Keystone Cops - how crimes actually get solved by these guys is beyond me. Save your time and watch a "Lifetime" woman-in-jeopardy movie on TV instead.
Customer Rating:
Summary: THE NOT SO PERFECT HUSBAND
Comment: INSTINCT TO KILL is based on Lisa Gardner's "The Perfect Husband," although in this film one would never guess that. Tim Abell plays and quite well, a psychotic cop who has murdered nine women, and who failed in his attempt to murder his wife (the lovely if challenged Melissa Crider), and has been sentenced to an institution for the criminally insane. Needless to say, he escapes and begins searching for his wife for ultimate revenge. Ms. Crider is referred to a freelance defense instructor, played by Mark Dascascos, and he agrees to help her ready herself to defend herself against this psycho spouse. Kadeem Hardison (who worked with Dascascos in the excellent DRIVE) plays the former partner of Abell, who helps in rounding Abell up.
What follows is fairly predictable, and often times sadistically cruel.
Abell is the real star of this movie; his cool abandon in the murders is chilling.
Customer Rating:
Summary: OH PLEASE
Comment: Good? Not. Corny? Yes. Predictable plot holes? Yes. The scene where the star and his "comedy" relief (KAdeem HArdison) are handcuffed and then left to die by the cops, is excruciatingly long. Does it take that long to be left on the side of the road? Did the director need to strettccchhhhh the scene to fill out the feature length run time? The implausible escapes and awful scenarios are putrid. The star is likeable, and just needs a decent script and a director who has actually made action movies. Two chop sticks down, baby.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not Mark's best, but still enjoyable
Comment: The plot and story is pretty simple and straight forward and it never fails to amaze me how movies will ignore the obvious to get a product out there. Is that vague? Basically what I'm saying is that there are some obvious plot holes that could have been done away with.There are some decent performances in here but they're kind of uneven and it feels like the cast isn't trying to hard most of the time. So why would I recommend this? Mark Dacascos of course!
On the acting side, Mark is trying to move into roles that require a little more characterization but unfortunately a movie of this type only allows a brief hint of that. Character study takes a back seat to action, which is also pretty sparse. I do think Mark put up a valiant effort, but it seems a little more emotion in certain areas would have made his performance more convincing. Tim Abell gives a fair performance as the protagonist, but as with Mark, there's some scenes that are played too detached for what's happening.
What we do have for action is pretty decent for the most part. There's a fight towards the end which shows off some new moves from Mark which are worth watching. But as with Drive, using a stunt double in certain scenes is both unnecessary and detracting from the experience. I believe it's James Lew, who's a great martial artist in his own right, but he's just not Mark.
I'd say this is something that hardcore Mark Dacascos fans might enjoy most. I still think casual watchers would be interested, but would probably do better to get Crying Freeman, Only the Strong, Drive or Brotherhood of the Wolf.
