When you see the phrases neo-noir or erotic thriller, read them as Giallo. Isn’t that what it all is, anyway? And who thought that one day, we’d have Jim Belushi as the protagonist of a psychosexual murder movie?

Director Andy Wolk would one day make The Christmas Shoes, but for now, he’s putting this together from a script by Jim Piddock, who has been in a lot of Christopher Guest’s films as an actor but wrote this and two episodes of Silk Stalkings before being the writer of Tooth Fairy.

Belushi is Jack Dobson, a Palm Beach homicide cop who we initially find flat on his back, dead from a gunshot wound to the chest. His narration takes us back to one evening that shows off just how smooth Jack is, defending a waitress from a rude customer and then immediately taking her back to his place, where he plays some smooth jazz before waking her up to coffee in bed. This movie wants you to know two things: Belushi fucks. And Belushi fucks good.

Along with his partner, Detective Steve Frayn (Tony Goldwyn), Jack is trying to figure out who is sending him lipstick-sealed threats. Is it meant for his brother Michael (William Russ), who is running for office? And is Jack so on the make that he’s willing to potentially sleep with his brother’s wife, Susan (Victoria Bass), his partner’s wife, Beth (Faye Grant), and definitely get horizontal and Belushi-sweaty with femme fatale Ellen Schofield (Lorraine Bracco)? This movie also wants you to know that every old man in Palm Beach has a filthy mouth, and they all have something to say about how badly they want to schtup Ellen, even if she rode her last husband into a heart attack.

Ellen also sleeps with Steve, even though Steve loves his wife. Everybody is getting with everybody in Palm Beach, which may as well be Rome. Women connected to Jack keep dying, their faces covered with lipstick — yay, Traces of Red! — which his brother reveals is something his first-grade teacher used to do to him before she would rape him. This is a wild departure for the Giallo, not just making its male protagonist vulnerable but seemingly switching him to the villain.

Or maybe not.

Despite being shot by his partner — it looked like he was about to choke out Steve’s wife — it’s soon revealed that the big brother was the one doing all the killing. And hey! There’s Belushi, looking like he just smoked one of his weed strains like Oreoz — they’re from the streets — or Rewrite. His brother grabs his gun and blows his brains out, ending on a downer note.

Despite being in theaters for a few days, this did big business on home video. Maybe it’s because Belushi wore all his own ties, and people recognized him not just as a fuckable prince of a man but as a sartorial style icon. You know, we should be nicer to him. And by that, I should be nicer to him. For all the horrible things on Twitter, I’ve learned that he’s a pretty chill person — growing all that weed will do that — and the more I think about it, the more good roles in movies by great directors he’s been in. He may need a Tarantino casting intervention so that he can complete this late-career reevaluation.

So yeah. Belushi in a Giallo, complete with an investigation into a misworking printer and trying to figure out a shade of lipstick and a certain perfume. Who knew?

You can watch this on Tubi.