Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

AaronCapenBanner Sydney Pollock directed this interesting drama starring Paul Newman as Miami Liquor salesman Mike Gallagher, who is the son of a mobster, though Mike himself is unconnected. When a Union Head is murdered, and mob involvement suspected, an overambitious Federal Attorney(played by Bob Balaban) decides to pressure Mike into helping them(even knowing his innocence) by going to irresponsible reporter Megan Carter(played by Sally Field) to publish the story. Mike has a solid alibi for the murder, but won't reveal it because it would hurt his fragile friend Teresa(played by Melinda Dillon) When the story(and her involvement) is published, it leads to tragic consequences, and Mike decides to teach the reporter and FBI a lesson by beating them at their own game...Well acted and made drama makes good points about the media and personal responsibility. Almost goes wrong with misguided romance of Mike and Megan, but rights itself with memorable finale, with Wilford Brimley stealing the film in a fantastic supporting performance, laying down the law in amusing yet intelligent fashion.

tieman64 A reversal of "All The President's Men", Sydney Pollack's "Absence of Malice" sees an overzealous prosecutor leaking information to a young reporter (Sally Field). The leak involves Michael Gallagher (Paul Newman), a liquor wholesaler whose father had a criminal past and mob affiliations. When Field publishes her story, which implicates Gallagher in the murder of a unionist, Gallagher challenges her. He believes he was unfairly slandered.Unlike "All the President's Man", which saw valiant media-men carving through lies and half truths to get at facts (thereby rightfully exposing and incriminating), "Absence of Malice" thus does the opposite. Here, journalists and prosecutors trade in lies, half-truths and skirt around laws. Meanwhile, the film's victims are innocent businessmen who are wrongly accused of bullying unions. The film's title refers to a by-law which essentially allows journalists to "do wrong" if they can sufficiently prove that they harboured no ill intentions.Like most of Pollack's films, "Malice" is overlong, simply shot and drags.7/10 – Worth one viewing.

Rockwell_Cronenberg Films about journalists have the ability to be hard-hitting, intense and topical stories that pack a mean punch. Look no further than All The President's Men for one of the finest examples of that, or more recently Rod Lurie's grossly overlooked Nothing But The Truth. However, when you take away that hard punch, you take away the soul of a journalism movie and the result ends up being quite flat. Absence of Malice is an example of the latter, a film that does a lot of things right but lacks a real flare for journalistic integrity.The story is vaguely interesting at times, but it never sizzles the way that it should and focuses too much on a half-assed and frankly uncomfortable relationship drama subplot. The main character is probably the most unprofessional reporter I've ever seen on film (honestly, people in that line of work should be offended) but looking past that, she's portrayed by Sally Field in one of the grossest examples of miscasting imaginable.This is a character who is supposed to be hotheaded, stubborn, all about the story and very, very stern, but Field isn't capable of playing any of those things, at least not at this point in her career. With her soft appearance and almost whisper of a voice, Field looks like a soccer mom trying to play reporter and it's kind of embarrassing how beneath the rest of the ensemble she is. There's strong supporting work by Melinda Dillon, Bob Balaban and Wilford Brimley, who only appears in one scene and completely dominates it, but it's no surprise that the star of the show is Paul Newman.Newman plays a member of a family with a criminal background who is slandered by Field's newspaper, and he portrays this with a kind of calm frustration that is fascinating to watch. This is an extremely intelligent man who knows all the roles that people are playing, but keeps all of this close to his chest and puts on the facade of the everyday man in the flannel shirt and blue jeans. It's primarily an internal work, with his world-worn face contrasted by the everlasting spark of those piercing blue eyes, but there are a few moments where he lets all of his rage out on the surface and delivers a shattering force of a performance.The movie is never hard to watch and moves along quite briskly, but ultimately it's a case of what it should have been rather than what it is. A journalist with no bite isn't going to leave much of an impression, and the same can be said about a journalism film. A disappointment coming from Sydney Pollack, who has delivered plenty of films with a lot more punch than this one, so you know he was capable of doing it proper. The title of the film is Absence of Malice, which is a slight irony since the product itself is lacking in any kind of strong emotion.

moonspinner55 Sydney Pollack is a solid, workman-like director who doesn't like to underline key moments with ostentation, he doesn't belabor certain points--and his pictures usually move along quite freely as a result. But with "Absence of Malice", he seems to have taken a page from Alan J. Pakula's film manual--"All the President's Men", in particular--and has slowed the pacing down to a crawl. Pollack also works well with his actors, yet this time he gets nothing at all interesting from Sally Field, cast as an overeager newspaper reporter who ruins an innocent working man's life with hearsay stories about him being involved with the Mafia. Paul Newman does a bit better as the target of her slander, and Melinda Dillon is very affecting as an emotionally-frail friend of Newman's who is maligned by proxy (both were Oscar-nominated). Still, the picture is mechanical, with a quasi-romantic subplot shoehorned in which doesn't make much sense (except to soften the squabbling characters). It doesn't even have a fresh, interesting look--just the same old visual clichés--and Pollack's reluctance to cut scenes down after their drama has played out slowly wears down the audience. *1/2 from ****