Directed by Harold Becker
Written by Aaron Sorkin and Scott Frank
Starring Alec Baldwin, Nicole Kidman, Bill Pullman, Bebe Neuwirth, George C. Scott, Anne Bancroft, Peter Gallagher, Josef Sommer, Tobin Bell, and Gwyneth Paltrow
As much as this 90s thriller struggles to pinpoint its own identity and is capable of throwing in twists for the pure sake of twists, the final product becomes so strange and amusing that I end up feeling some fondness towards it. I gotta say, it’s been great to watch Nicole Kidman lately, considering I’d recently seen The Paperboy, then revisited the underrated Dead Calm, and now I’m emerging from Malice with appreciation for the commitment that she brings to Tracy. Even when she’s in a trashy flick, she’s consistently enthralling. Alec Baldwin turns in his own excellent work as well, slipping in an arrogance that makes Jed so damn comfortable with believing that he can wield his medical power in whatever way he wants. His God Complex monologue is such a hilarious thing to watch Baldwin devote himself to delivering, and it clarifies just how massive this doctor’s ego is. Even he’s managed to be self-aware about it. As for Bill Pullman, he’s essentially having to investigate what’s going on in a straight man role that doesn’t give him as much freedom to work with relatively, but I remain engaged by him. Plus, there’s a certain point where he does have to summon up a darker edge that becomes interesting to witness, and it’s a bit evocative of the vengeful dickweasel that he plays in The Last Seduction. Oh, and then we’ve got a supporting cast that boasts a horribly Boston-accented Bebe Neuwirth, Peter Gallagher, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tobin Bell, and Anne Bancroft in a single scene that lets her captivate us. It’s one of those groups that leaves me repeatedly going, “Wow, what are you doing here?”
Then we have the narrative of Malice itself, which director Harold Becker (the only other movie I’ve seen from him is Sea of Love, which was a solidly moody ride that got me hooked on “Sea of Love” by Phil Phillips & The Twilights) and writer pair Scott Frank and Aaron Sorkin (yes, the same guy who’s directing The Social Reckoning) have handled in such a… fascinating fashion. When I’m initially diving into this film, it’s pretty easy to assume it will head in a specific direction. But then this subverts my expectations, and I suppose I can express admiration for that boldness to break free of its formulaic lane. However, the decisions it makes to zig and then zag throughout the rest of the tale lands with a bit too much messiness. It’s as if this is having a bucket of fun experimenting with the dramatic and suspenseful tones that it can toss into the cauldron alongside a bunch of plot twists, and it gets so distracted by this that it forgets the importance of tightening everything up into something that achieves a baseline level of logical coherence. There comes a point where I simply have to accept the loosy-goosy and silly land that it’s treading through, and once the third act rolls around, I’m able to get some chuckles out of the fun that it’s hurling onto the screen.
And that’s Malice, a flick that, at one moment, baffles me over Tracy and Andy continuing to get all horny together while a kid is apparently able to watch them from across the street. My god, why haven’t you put up any curtains yet? Why doesn’t the lack of privacy suck the peppers out of the space for you? In any case, I can’t say this is necessarily a good movie, but it’s entertaining at the very least.
My final rating: 3 out of 5 stars
