MALICE
A film review by Jason John Seaver
Copyright 1993 Jason John Seaver
Cast: Bill Pullman, Nicole Kidman, Alec Baldwin, Bebe Neuwirth.
Special Appearances by Anne Bancroft and George C. Scott
Director: Harold Becker
Writers: Aaron Sorkin, Jonas McCord, and Scott Frank
Rating: R (Violence, profanity, partial nudity)
Whatever you do, don't see this movie twice. It's not a bad way to spend an afternoon, and it will keep you guessing, but a lot of time it doesn't play fair with the audience. You may not notice it at the time, but fifteen minutes out of the theater, max, and the flaws will become readily apparent.
Bill Pullman plays the Dean of Student Affairs at Smith College, a (real) all-female school in Massachusetts. A serial rapist has been stalking and mutilating his students, and he's understandably upset. The detective assigned to the case (Bebe Neuwirth) hasn't had any success in tracking the criminal down, and finds circumstantial evidence that he may actually be the culprit.
One of the girls manages to live through the experience, thanks to a brilliant surgeon (Alec Baldwin). The surgeon, it turns out, went to the same high school with the dean, and is new in town, and looking for a place to stay. His classmate has an apartment on the third floor of his house he can rent out, although his wife Tracy (Nicole Kidman) is none too thrilled by this arrangement, even though it was originally her idea to rent the apartment out.
Point one in Malice's favor: All four of the identified actors give excellent performances; I was especially impressed with Pullman, whom I had previously seen only in Mel Brooks's SPACEBALLS. Neuwirth actually did a little too well--I could have easily done without the central Mass. accent, which in my opinion borders on one of the most obnoxious modes of speech in existence (and I go to school and have family here).
Point two: The situation absolutely screams that Baldwin's character will be revealed to be the rapist, and that the movie will culminate in a confrontation between him and Pullman that leads to the former's demise. Happily, that resolution doesn't come to pass.
Point three: The police are actually portrayed as efficient, trustworthy, and effective. This seems to be an extremely rare event and should be noted.
Taking away from MALICE, though, is that the situation that does come to pass is unlikely in the extreme, with plot holes big enough to drive a tank through comfortably. The plot twists and turns like a New England road, surprising at every opportunity. The plot twists create a terrific sense of paranoia, an atmosphere where no-one can be trusted.
They also suffer from seeming to be made up by the writers as they went along. Oftentimes a new revelation will have only a tenuous connection to the story set out at the beginning of the movie, and by the end several facts about the real situation are flat-out contradictory.
I've tried to reveal as little as possible about the movie because it is, despite the writing flaws, an enjoyable (if ephemerally so) movie. The dialogue is well-done, the basic idea behind the plot is good enough to make up for the missteps in execution. Someone else mentioned that a quirky mentor seems to be a Scott Frank trademark (remember Robin Williams's role in DEAD AGAIN); Anne Bancroft is excellent in her scene.
I'd put it in the 6.0-6.5 range. See it once, preferably at matinee prices, and enjoy it for its plusses, rather than its fault.
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews