Absence of Malice
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Movie Reviews of Absence of Malice
Movie Review: On The Record / Off The Record
Summary: 4 Stars
One of the worries of journalists everywhere is to keep an protect the source. The source is where all the information comes from. Once you've got a source another point comes up: how reliable this person is. It is very easy to anyone go to a reporter tell something -- that's not necesseraly true -- and his/her statement is published. So a good professional would surely investigate and print the news once it is proved to be true. But this can happen only in a ideal world. Let's face the truth: journalist do not have too much time to comfirm or deny informations. Nowadays with the internet, the readers want new news all the time and the fight for the click has shorted the deadlines. It is in this time of digital press that film made in the 80s' turns out to be very interesting and provocative, due to its timeless subject. Sally Field plays a reporter of a major Miami's Newspaper who has fallen in a trap. She has no qualms when having the chance to peep a file about a man accused of kidnapping and killing a working class leader. Moreover, she gets involved with this man who in the end happens to be her reliable source. Telling more than this would mean give some interesting twists of the movie.
As aforementioned, the movie tackles ethic in journalism, and, let's face it, Sally's character is not that ethical with her sources. She does most of the things that someone expected to be fair and accurate wouldn't do, like not confirming information or publishing off record statements -- plus she sleeps with her source. Some in-love hearts would justify it saying that love is above everything, but I don't agree. What kind of professional is she?
Tlaking about the movie itself, it is very entertaining. Sally Field gives a good performance, but who is great as usual is Paul Newman. His perfornance is very subtle and full of nuances. Bob Balaban is terrific and a bit hateful as agent who comes down to be the prime source to Sally's reporter, detonating a sequence of inacuratte reports.
It is impossible to watch this movie and not to rise questions like how accure all the stuff we read in newspapers, magazines, internet is; and also when is an information so important that it has to be published, even when the source asks it to ve off the record. One interesting example would be when a reporter is working on a piece about two guys missing in the sea and a Lt. tells her that there are sharks in the area. But Sally tells her not to mention it in her article, because it may scare turists, so the solution is to say that is an area with many fishes. Then how true is her piece?
All in all, nowadays, as the press has to be faster, there's less time to check information. So the readers are much more liable to read untrue stories.
Movie Review: The dangers of the public spotlight
Summary: 4 Stars
Not quite a star-studded flick, but chock full of subtly forceful personalities. Paul Newman plays Gallagher, a crusty but otherwise legit Florida-based liquor wholesaler whose life is turned upside-down when the Miami Standard fingers him as a possible material witness. Under current laws regarding libel, Newman can always sue the paper for libel. However, the law sets a higher standard of wrongdoing to be proven when the victim is a public-figure. (The distinction was meant to prevent public officials from using libel laws to block any criticism of their actions - most notably in the case of southern police officials during the early civil-rights years; unfortunately for Gallagher, the laws have been expanded to cover any figure in the public eye, whether he's there by choice or despite it.) Because the Standard acts without malice, and only reports what's been leaked to it by a shifty DoJ official (Bob Balaban), the fact that the story itself is actually incorrect is irrelevant. While DoJ hopes to pressure Gallagher to turn state's evidence, or somehow lead them to somebody who can, the newspaper hopes Gallagher will come forward and give his own spin. (Exaggeration is an often-used media tactic - one hoped to pressure a story's subject to reflexively come forward and give a story that, while less spectacular, is nonetheless worse off now that it's been confirmed.) While Gallagher comes forward, and hooks up with Sally Field as the Standard's ace reporter, he soon finds another way to wreak havoc - by turning his enemies against each other. There's something satisfying about the deceptive ease with which Gallagher turns the media against itself, but the resolution is unsatisfying. Wilford Brimley plays the Assistant Attorney General who gets everybody honest by threatening to make people talk under oath. (We get the point, people have no problem saying anything as long as they don't have to stand by it.) The last scene is essentially Brimley's one-man show, one that upstages Sally Fields's character's turn-about: rather than disclose Gallagher as the source of her latest story, she's willing to take the fall for him. Her logic is impeccable - somebody is going to take the blame and the fall no matter what. Why not her? If anything, the film disappoints in underplaying the attraction between the two, which only makes you wonder whether her denouement is one of journalistic integrity or love. Instead, we cheer that Brimley will get to tell the media what he thinks (and nobody in this room is going to like what I have to say, he warns) and the way he exacts retribution (you're no White House appointee, he tells Balaban's character. "The one who hired you, is me." Start packing).
Movie Review: It Get's Better With Each Viewing
Summary: 4 Stars
It's hard for me to just toss around 5-star ratings for movies. I think they need to be reserved for something really special. Absence of Malice is a great movie and it deserves a solid 4-stars in my opinion.
There is really no need to rehash some of the other things said in the previous reviews. I certainly agree with all the kudos for Wilford Brimley. His performance became the initial reason why I fell in love with this movie. The repeat viewings have shown me that it is hard to find bad acting in this movie.
You always know that a director has done a great job when he can take characters with limited screen time and still cause us to know what they are feeling and thinking. Pollack does this masterfully with DA Quinn (Hood), Uncle Santos (Adler), and Editor McAdam (Sommer).
I did have 2 problems with the film after the first couple viewings but have since made peace concerning them. First, I really didn't like the Teresa Perrone character played flawlessly by Melinda Dillon. I didn't buy the relationship between her and Gallagher (Newman) but I guess if she had been his sister or his ex-wife then the revenge plot he charted with his uncle would have taken a different course.
I also initially didn't like the casting of Sally Field in the lead. I felt the same way a fews years ago when Meg Ryan tried to pull off Proof Of Life. If you needed cute then Sally Field was your huckleberry but this role needed a little more street cred. The problem I had was who else could you have cast? Streep was even younger then Fields at the time. I'm not a huge Faye Dunaway fan but she probably would have been a better fit. But, I will have to admit that Ms Field never looked better then when she was standing on the dock in the closing scene with Paul Newman.
One last note. I wonder if Bob Balaban, who since has been great in the Christopher Guest trilogy of films and the TV show Seinfeld, kept the rubber band that he kept spinning around in this movie. It was a very effective prop in moving forward his career.
Movie Review: Great movie with silly love story.
Summary: 4 Stars
How unbelievable is it that Paul and Sally would end up in bed after Newman's friend, (played by Melinda Dillon), commits suicide because of the news story Sally's character writes. The dialog between Gallagher, (Newman), and Carter, (Field), is pointed, dynamic and, frankly, brilliant, but it shouldn't be happening in the bedroom. It doesn't make any sense. The quirky Elliot Rosen, (played brilliantly by Bob Balaban) is the engine driving this bus off a cliff. To Wit:
FBI Agent Eddie Frost (Arnie Ross): What the hell's going on?
Elliott Rosen (Balaban): Good question. You oughta join the FBI. I don't know either.
Frost: It doesn't make any sense.
Rosen: Got any ideas?
Frost: Sure, early retirement.
Rosen: I got a couple. I want 24 hour surveillance on Gallagher, not close. And I want taps on three phones; Gallagher's warehouse, Gallagher @ home..., Quinn's house.
Frost: Wait a minute. Where are we going to find a judge who'll let us tap Quinn?
Rosen: I'm not gonna ask a judge.
Frost: It's no good in court.
Rosen: I'm not in court. Not yet.
Frost: You really think Gallagher bought him.
Rosen: I don't know. You think he's for sale?
During the entire conversation Rosen is animatedly chewing gum and spinning a rubber band between his hands. What a performance.
Of course the curtain finally comes down when Asst. U.S. Attorney General James A. Wells (portrayed masterfully by Wilford Brimley) hits town with a U.S. Marshall and a stenographer in tow and puts an end to the whole charade and Elliot Rosen's career. If you haven't seen this film or haven't seen it in a while, see it now.
Movie Review: Wilford Brimley Steals the Show
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a good movie with an interesting plot, good acting, decent directing and a politically relevent comment on the excesses of the US Press. Paul Newman gives his standard delivery that garnered him another deserving Best Actor nomination. However, what I come away with each time I see this movie is the short but powerful preformance of Wilford Brimley as the federal Justice Department official who comes in to untangle the confusing trap that Newman set. While the other characters have been playing a game of chess up til now, Brimley has no time for ruses or finess. He bullies, cajoles, and forces his way to the truth in a role that makes everyone else look small in comparison. His dispensing of penalties, options and opinions in the wake of the "tag; you're it" game that everyone else was playing is masterful. It's almost too bad the film didn't end there because the rest is unimpressive in comparison.
What is hard to comprehend is that Wilford Brimley not only didn't get the Best Supporting Actor Oscar; he wasn't even nominated! Oh well, awards don't always go to the most deserving. If you haven't seen "Absence of Malace", watch it the next chance you get. Much of it will impress you and one scene in particular will stay with you long after the others are forgotten.