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Talking To The Screen
Malice :1993
***BE WARNED: I WILL RUIN THIS MOVIE FOR YOU, AND NOT APOLOGIZE, IT'S ONE OF THE 
LEAST ENJOYABLE MOVIES I'VE EVER SEEN****

Bill Pullman, Nicole Kidman, and Alec Baldwin star in this nearly unwatchable 
suspense movie.  Bill Pullman plays Andy Safian, the Assistant Dean of a small 
New England College being preyed upon by a serial rapist.  Nicole Kidman is 
Andy's lovely wife, Tracy Kennsinger.  The hospital in this sleepy Massachusetts 
town has just welcomed to its surgical staff the great Dr. Jed Hill, a big-shot 
MD out of Boston played transparently by Alec Baldwin.  It turns out that Andy 
and Jed went to high school together, although Jed doesn't remember.  Jed being 
a popular big shot his entire life couldn't be expected to remember the bookish 
Safian.  Andy quickly becomes mildly infatuated with Jed, and in need of the 
money, agrees to rent him a room in the Safian home.  Tracy suffers from 
abdominal pains.  One night, they reach the point of incapacitation, and she is 
rushed to the hospital, where who else but Dr. Hill should be operating on her.  
(Of course, Dr. Hill has been out drinking, but that's no matter.) The surgeon 
discovers that Tracy has a burst ovarian cyst, and removes one ovary.  He 
discovers a cyst on her other ovary and suspecting that she won't survive the 
night, removes that one too.  Tracy then leaves Andy: he made the call to remove 
the second ovary, and Tracy can't face the reality of not having kids with him 
in her life.  Then Tracy sues Dr. Hill and the hospital for millions of dollars, 
leaving Andy with nothing.

There's the premise, now the pan.  Never before have I been so unmoved by a 
suspense movie (if it's even worthy of the genre).  The dialog foreshadows the 
twists so heavy-handedly, that they're not even plot twists any more.  In one 
scene Andy says to Tracy, "[Jed]'s an old friend." Tracy: "No, he's not, you 
don't even know him." In another, when asked by a fellow doctor if he and Dr. 
Hill will get along, Jed replies, "Don't be ridiculous, everybody likes me."  Of 
course, Alec Baldwin is the bad guy.  He's the unknown, rowdy, abrasive, 
arrogant guy who reeks of deception.  Nicole Kidman delivers a passable 
performance, dragged down to the gutter by the transparent swill that is Pullman 
and Baldwin's effort.

Alec Baldwin has a monologue during the deposition scene about doctors and God 
complexes that is clearly meant to be moving and revealing.  It's neither.  It 
comes off as unbelievable and stupid.  Based on the capacity to grant life 
doctors have been known to liken themselves to God.  If this is a surprise, 
maybe you'll enjoy 'Malice', the suspense is about that thick.  

Notice how I haven't mentioned the serial rapist lurking around the college 
campus?  Yeah, well neither does 'Malice'.  It's used as a cheap device to show 
that Andy Safian is sterile. This is important because it turns out that Tracy 
was pregnant *gasp* when her ovaries were removed. Meaning *drum roll* she was 
having an affair.

I can't bitch about this movie enough.  Point being; don't waste your time on 
it.  How Anne Bancroft got talked into playing Tracy's alcoholic mother is 
beyond me.