Malice MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +3 Content: -2 1/2

Tracy (Nicole Kidman) and Andy (Bill Pullman) are the perfect married couple. He is on the faculty at a prestigious college in Boston while she works in the local hospital day care. They are planning to have a long life together and a large family until Dr. Jed Hill (Alec Baldwin) shows up. Jed is a cocky doctor recently graduated from Harvard. When Tracy must undergo surgery for a ruptured ovary, Jed performs the operation. On a headstrong whim, he unnecessarily removes both of Tracy's ovaries. Tracy sues Jed for 20 million dollars and leaves Andy for allowing Jed to take her other ovary out. A crushed Andy visits Tracy's lawyer and discovers that all is not as it seems. This leads him to Tracy's mother, played wonderfully by Anne Bancroft. Suddenly what was once a typical suspense flick turns into more of a mystery thriller. MALICE is a competent mystery plot-twister that most adults will enjoy. At the same time, Andy starts to deal with a serial rapist at the college that attacks girls and cuts off their hair.

Most of the objectionable scenes in this movie are completely unnecessary. A subplot about a serial rapist/murderer is given a lot of attention and has little bearing on the main story. A woman partially strangled and another girl's corpse with bulging, bleeding eyes are shown. There are three fairly explicit gratuiitous sexual scenes with female breast nudity, male and female rear nudity. On-screen violence shows one man beaten with a fire extinguisher on the back and head and another shot twice in the chest. The many obscenities and some profanity are completely unnecessary. On a positive note, the movie has a good message about the futility of revenge and the dangers of letting malice control your actions. But for the language, the sexual situations, and the violence, don't even give MALICE a thought.

Preview Reviewer: Greg Wilson
Distributor: Columbia Pictures, 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232