Not necessarily the best movies ever made, but these are twenty of my favorites, in no particular order.  Each post for the next twenty days will feature a brief discussion of one film (though one or two days will have multiple posts to make up for absences).

Post 6: Malice (1993 dir. Harold Becker)

This movie’s plot does not make any sense, but I simply do not care. The film works anyway. The atmosphere, music, and performances all intertwine to suggest something is going on, and that something is not good. If movies are indeed not what they about but how they are about, then this one is well about its business.

Bill Pullman always looks like the guy you could con out of his underwear. Nicole Kidman, here much earlier in her career, projects nasty motives better than she ever has. And Alec Baldwin, in a masterful performance, pulls off a great monologue wherein he basically describes himself as a deity. “I am God,” he tells the attorneys. It’s a fantastic moment.

Jerry Goldsmith’s score plays a part in the film, laying down a counter point to the actual action. And it’s action which, by the way, also includes a sub-plot (yes sub-plot) about a serial rapist stalking women at the local college where Bill Pullman’s character works. My favorite line? When asked why he looks so beat up, Pullman responds, “I just beat the shit out of a deeply disturbed serial rapist.”

Oh, and Ann Bancroft turns up too, playing Nicole Kidman’s estranged con-artist mother. George C. Scott hops on board as an old mentor to Alec Baldwin’s character. Gwyneth Paltrow appears in a small, early role as well. There’s a lot going on here. On and on the film goes, building this atmosphere of suspicion and misdirection, never really explaining itself, but it confidently keeps going. It’s a wonder to behold, entertaining, and in its own way emotionally satisfying.

Just don’t ask me to explain the plot.