Malice [DVD] [1994]

Take a surgeon with a God complex, a perfect young wife who loves kids, add a sincere doofus of a husband and you will have Malice, an intricate insurance-murder mystery that leaves a satisfyingly full-bodied, nasty taste in your mouth.

Andy Safian (Bill Pullman) is a decent, sincere dean at a picture-perfect small college in a picture-perfect New England town. His wife, Tracy (Nicole Kidman), volunteers at a children's center five days a week. They've just bought an old, rundown Victorian house they plan to remodel and fill with kids of their own. In to town comes Dr. Jed Hill (Alec Baldwin), the hospital's new surgeon and a hot shot cutter. Andy and Jed meet the same day and Jed winds up renting Andy's and Tracy's third floor room. Jed needs a place to stay temporarily and Andy and Tracy can use the extra income for remodeling expenses.

And then Tracy starts to have abdominal pains. One night she's rushed to the hospital, where Jed operates after getting Andy's permission. Jed removes an ovary he says was cancerous. It turns out Tracy had been pregnant and the ovary was healthy. A medical hearing is held. The result is that Tracy is awarded $20 million, but she is so angry with Andy that she leaves him. Ah, but there's more. To say what would ruin a good mystery. Let's just say that there are a lot of twists and that things very often aren't what they seem. There is some really unpleasant manipulation going on, plus a degree of sexual ruthlessness that would make a fine entry into Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis.

The most serious drawback to the movie is a major red herring involving a serial criminal that goes nowhere. The purpose seems only to give Andy a reason to spend the last half of the movie with a seriously bruised face. There also is a semi-red herring involving a doctor in another town that, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out. I think it was most likely a plot point that became a loose string the director figured the audience would forget about.

The movie features fine performances by all. Pullman's decent guy persona drives the second half of the movie. Two one-off cameos by George C. Scott as a respected surgeon and Anne Bancroft as...well, you'll need to see the movie...are both important to the plot. Bebe Neuwirth as police detective Dana Harris, a friend of Andy's, nearly steals every scene she's in. She uses an accent that reminds me of Maerose Prizzi, but even so she radiates no-nonsense common sense and a real concern for Andy. Nicole Kidman is what the movie is all about. She gives a performance that is subtle and forceful. Amazingly, 16 years after she made this movie her forehead still has no trace of a wrinkle. Alec Baldwin has spent the latter half of his movie career specializing in unlikable egoists. Here he's interesting and at least a little likable. And does his character, Dr. Jed Hill, really have a God complex? Here's what Dr. Hill has to say for himself: "I have an M.D. from Harvard. I am board certified in cardio-thoratic medicine and trauma surgery. I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England, and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you: When someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trauma from post-operative shock, who do you think they're praying to? Now, go ahead and read your Bible, and you go to your church...and, with any luck, you might win the annual raffle. But if you're looking for God, he was in operating room number two on November 17, and he doesn't like to be second guessed. You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God."

On balance, Malice is a nifty piece of complex nastiness.

Malice is almost a 'film noir' and could almost have been written in that era! It combines two main plots - one in which a school teacher tries to find out who is murdering female students (and cutting off their hair!) and another in which his wife sues the hospital and surgeon who have removed both of her ovaries during an operation. Without revealing the twist at the end, there is one part I can't fathom, which is why Nicole Kidman's character puts up with Alec Baldwin's surgeon bonking the pants of other women in her house! Alec Baldwin is probably the best player in this movie by some stretch: "You ask me if I have a God complex?" (when another surgeon says he plays God in the operating theatre) "Let me tell you something, I AM GOD!" Nicole Kidman is good as the calculating, money-pinching anti-heroine, but the actress who plays her mother is fantastic. If you like suspense and and unexpected endings, you'll love this movie.

A proper thriller with a storyline, good acting and a couple of twists that could break a hip.

Who'd have thought you could dislike Nicole Kidman. The imaginary mother of my children plays a nasty, deceptive and frankly quite disturbed woman who seeks to claim compensation for a surgical mishap, engineered by her and her lover/surgeon Alec Baldwin.

Plans go astray as Bill Pullman, the deceived husband gets to the bottom (you see Nicole's incidentally) of the devious plot.

HOORAY THE FILM MAKERS