MovieChat Forums > Absence of Malice (1981) Discussion > What would have helped this movie?

What would have helped this movie?

posted 14 years ago by tricksoftrade01
4 replies | jump to latest

While this was a interesting movie, it was obviously flawed. I feel with a couple of tweeks it could have been a gem. But I can't quite put my finger on what was wrong. Sally Field, while a fine actress, was just too attractive for a hard nosed reporter type. Maybe the layed back Miami location also took away from some of the nessesary 'grittyness' of the movie. A wintery Chicago might have been a better setting. That is it! The film needed more grit, a little more violence, not necessary on the Scoresese level, but a bit more.

[–] ramdrool 14 years ago

People don't like Sally Field in it I think is opinion. She wasn't the "typical" person you'd expect in the role, but if you actually went into newspapers in the 80s, you'd seen a lot of young women acting and looking a lot like her in those jobs.

As far as the movie ... it takes too long to heat up. The part leading up to Mike getting his revenge should have been cut in half, and part after that should have been expanded. The PERFECT movie to do a remake. You can almost take it scene for scene and word for word, change the pacing and the length of some of those scenes of them sitting around the newspaper rooms, and it becomes almost an action movie with the high drama at the end.

The drama at the end this movie was awesome, but the courtroom "setting" itself instead of feeling like a Few Good Men it felt like Night Court. I just think there he could have built build up some suspense that would have flowed into a really spectacular battle of wits in the "hearing" (even though it was still pretty freaking awesome!)

[–] Zuider_Zee 10 years ago

What would have helped the movie would have been if the Paul Newman character told the Sally Field character exactly what he thought of her, her profession and her lack of work ethics. He was too smart to pull that boneheaded "Maybe we'll see each again" crap. She screwed with his life, indirectly caused the death of his friend and all she could day was the she wasn't very good at her job. That, my friends, is an understatement.

[–] Iconoclast321 (386) 4 years ago

Agreed. I found her character repulsive. And yes, SF was miscast.

[–] Etherdave (175) 4 years ago

This film was not about grit or violence, or even political corruption, which is why deaths occur off-screen, there are no fisticuffs or chase scenes, or tawdry transactions conducted in snowy back-alleys. This film is about the power of the press to ruin other peoples' lives when journalists decide to compromise ethical standards in the name of getting a byline. The fact that this story plays out in the sunny daylight of Miami rather than the gloom of an urban hell-hole is intended to shock and terrify those in the audience that might imagine their precious rights to be sacrosanct and inviolable. Instead of 'Absence of Malice' I suggest you watch 'Three Days of the Condor', an earlier film by Sidney Pollack that seems more catered to your needs.