Misbegotten, over-heated thriller about the new surgeon at a New England hospital who is invited to board with an old high school acquaintance and his wife, which soon leads to a series of crosses and double-crosses. Slickly-made assemblage of red herrings, plot-holes and clichés. An entire sub-plot about a serial rapist turns out to be fatuous padding, and some of the plot-twists are surprisingly tasteless for such a "classy", big-budget thriller. Terrific actors Alec Baldwin, Nicole Kidman and Bill Pullman (and Gwyneth Paltrow in a small part) manage to make the preliminaries gripping, but once the story threads start tying themselves into knots, there isn't much this cast can do except struggle. ** from ****
Review of Malice
