| Columbia Pictures | Release Date: December 18, 1981 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
8
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
|
Watch Now
| Stream On |
|
| Buy on |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
Critic Reviews
It is also extremely well acted at every level (one especially wants to single out Bob Balaban as the Government's chief aggressor and Wilford Brimley as its belated voice of conscience), and directed by Sidney Pollack with a sort of crisp but unassuming professionalism that is rarer than it ought to be. Perhaps best of all, the script, by sometime Journalist Kurt Luedtke, who was once part of a Pulitzer-winning investigative team on the Detroit Free Press, has a marvelously entertaining intricacy, briskly and believably building, half-inch by half-inch, Michael's outrage over and Megan's entrapment in the plot to get him.
Read full review
Sydney Pollack's directing is efficient and the film is moderately entertaining, but it leaves no residue. Except for the intensity of Newman's sly, compact performance...and the marvelously inventive acting of Melinda Dillon.
Absence of Malice is lively, provocative and intelligent, three qualities in short supply this Christmas. It simplifies, but it rarely distorts, and it doggedly picks at sores journalists would just as soon banish by Band-aid. [19 Dec 1981]
Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
