MALICE
A film review by Vijay Ramanujan
Copyright 1993 Vijay Ramanujan
Cast: Alec Baldwin; Nicole Kidman; Bill Pullman and appearances by George C. Scott and Anne Bancroft
Plot: There's a serial rapist/murderer running amok on campus, and Andy Safien (Pullman) is the unfortunate Dean of Student Affairs who knows all the victims. Meanwhile, his wife has abdominal pains, and an arrogant doctor he "knew" in high school moves into his house. How does it all tie in?
Well, it doesn't. Once in a while, you come across a movie so bad that the writers should have their licenses revoked. This is one of those. This movie was very well acted. The individual scenes were well scripted and directed, but the movie was incoherent. For me to enjoy a plot twist, I have to be grounded first, I have to have a frame of reference with which to see the twists. This movie was twisting so often and so wildly that you never get a chance to see what it is becoming or what it no longer is. The basic problem with the movie seems to have been this: The writers wrote half the movie, and then decided, "Hey, what if ...?" So they put some twist in. They never bothered to go back and see if it makes sense with the rest of the movie. Often times, it not only doesn't fit in, but it contradicts things that have already been said and seen. And the ending is so predictable that it made me laugh. In fact, there were at least three high tension scenes in the movie during which the audience I saw it with started laughing out loud. (One involving a big, climactic fight between the hero and the villain.) The highlight of the film was a man in the third row screaming "Put that bitch in her place" when Baldwin slapped Kidman. Sad comment.
So, examples of those incoherencies that I said were so prevalent:
SPOILERS - SPOILERS - SPOILERS
SPOILERS - SPOILERS - SPOILERS ------------------------------
1) Tracy Safien has been seeing a doctor for two years about a serious medical problem. His husband has never even talked to the doctor, let alone met with him.
2) Hill is willing to throw away a practice in Cardio-thorassic surgery for five million dollars. That is ridiculous when you consider how much such surgeons make yearly.
3) The blind kid across the street definitely makes an effort, early in the movie, to stare out the window at the Safiens. Why?
4) How did Tracy Safien know that the surgeon who would operate on her would be Dr. Hill? Is there only one surgeon on duty? And why call a Thorassic surgeon to do an operation on ovaries? Hardly his speciality.
5) Why spend thirty minutes on the serial rapist scenes when the only apparent purpose of said scenes was to establish that Andy was sterile?
6) Jed and Tracy have to have been planning this from before Hill moved in. (I assume that's why she suggested taking in boarders.) So why does she seem so nervous around Hill, as in the bathroom scene?
7) Lillianfield is a front for Hill, apparently. At least, we are led to believe so. But how can Lillianfield practice? His speciality is not the same as Hill's, and there is no way a doctor can "double major" without anyone knowing. And if Lillianfield doesn't have a legit practice, why have an answering service?
And one minor blooper/problem:
1) Hill and others talk, in the bar, about how the starting tailback for the team on the television is out after failing a drug test. One person asks why he can't stay off drugs for a million a year. Unfortunately, the team being shown is USC, and there are no million dollar college players who undergo drug tests.
And others, but my time is running out, so I will leave you with these few.
Overall, a poor excuse for a film, probably the worst movie of the nineties, and maybe longer. (A low) 1/4
Vijay Ramanujan
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