Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Leonard Maltin, who usually agrees with me (!), gives this movie only 2 1/2 stars. The Amazon reviewer says it doesn't make much sense and is full of McGuffins! Well, they're both way off base this time. McGuffins? Try to come up with even one good one, and you'll have something that most thrillers don't have at all. Come up with several, as does MALICE, and you have a totally brilliant thriller. Yes, the serial killer subplot was thrown in--for laughs, maybe? No matter, it served its purpose of deflection, setting up the main character, and even -- horror of horrors! -- filling time while time needs to be passing by in order for the main plot to mature. The movie was touted as being from the same director who brought us SEA OF LOVE, which to my mind is an immediate turn-off. But it shows--as William Goldman shows so clearly in his books--that the same director can be quite different depending on the screenplay. MALICE has a great screenplay, so all the director had to do was film it. Of course, I exaggerate, but wait a moment--look who he had to work with: Nicole Kidman, Alec Baldwin, and Bill Pullman. Each turned in a totally outstanding, memorable performance. Pullman had the hardest role and he pulled it off. Kidman is one of the greatest actresses of our generation. Baldwin was good as usual, and we especially have to thank the casting director for choosing him for this role, which seems to be "pure Baldwin," if you know what I mean (e.g., most Bogart movies are "pure Bogart," as if there were no one else who could possibly play that role, including George Raft as Rick in CASABLANCA). And even Peter Gallagher shows up here in an early role that makes a strong impression. George C. Scott is perfect, as always, in a cameo role. Nicole Kidman does not seem to be all that impressive through most of the movie, but she's playing a role, and playing it to the hilt, as we find out later. She gets her chance to show what she can do in the last fifteen minutes, and you can see her incredible range, her ability to focus the film, the depth of her resources as an actress, which she exceeds only in her bravura role in TO DIE FOR. All in all, MALICE is one of the finest thrillers of the 90s, and my prediction is that it will become a major cult favorite and be reissued sooner or later on DVD.
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What happens when you open your home to someone who's gutsier than you, more devious than you and crafty enough to steal your life right out from under you? Plenty of Malice. Starring Alec Baldwin, Nicole Kidman and Bill Pullman and boastingan excellent supporting cast(The New York Times) that includes OscarÂ(r) winners* Gwyneth Paltrow and Anne Bancroft, this bold, riveting thriller isdeviously entertaining(The New York Times). Easy-going college dean Andy Safian's (Pullman) quiet New England world has just been terribly disrupted. Two coeds have been raped, a third has been killed and the police are beginning to suspect him! At home, bills are pilingup, his wife (Kidman) is developing severe stomach cramps and the new tenanta devilishly handsome surgeon (Baldwin)is regularlyentertainingnurses late into the night. Little does Andy know that all of these events are related and that he's about to be blindsided by something more daring and deadly than anything he could have ever imagined!*Paltrow: Actress, Shakespeare in Love (1998); Bancroft: Actress, The Miracle Worker (1962)
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