Malice: TV Review

Malice has promise.

A slick thriller that embraces the idea of a manny wreaking havoc on a wealthy family’s life feels like it’s ripe with potential.

Unfortunately, despite the stellar work of its leads, this six-part series struggles to shake the cliches and the obvious plot devices that can be seen a mile off. Add in some imagery of a snake slithering through a home and halls, and it all sadly begins to feel like déjà vu with a lack of subtlety.

If last month’s remake of The Hand That Rocks The Cradle brought the concept of the wronged interloper back, then Malice suffers from the fact that the story’s a very familiar one.

This time around, comedian Jack Whitehall goes for the more charismatic and dramatic edges that he’s deployed before to varying degrees of success as Adam, a manny to friends of wealthy couple Jamie and Nat Tanner (David Duchovny and Carice van Houten). When Adam ends up helping out with their kids while they’re all on a friends and family holiday in Greece, the Tanners ask him to head back to their UK home to help out.

But before they leave Greece, Adam’s already causing chaos on the Tanner’s fragile equilibrium, growing schisms and fractures between all elements of the family dynamic.

Malice works reasonably well within its mini-series format and while episodes don’t outstay their welcome with a pleasing 45-minute duration, there are times when it feels like there’s some padding going on in the script.

Early on, if you're fairly astute, you can guess what guides the reason for Adam’s uncharacteristically hostile behaviour. It’s this lack of surprise that really hampers some of the suspense in Malice – and while there are some moments of brutality and occasional dread, there’s never really anything that pushes viewers to the edge of their seat.

It doesn’t help much that Jamie Tanner isn’t exactly the nicest of guys. From goading and mocking his youngest son to being openly abusive and obnoxious to pretty much everyone around him, he’s not the kind of protagonist you particularly want to cheer for, so as his life unravels, there’s a distinct feeling of audience apathy emerging which somewhat cripples proceedings.

Equally, the finale feels somewhat rushed and abrupt in parts as the sparse threads come together. The moment of any catharsis feels muted in the conclusion, a trait that’s hard to shake after the final credits have rolled.

That said, there are some suspenseful moments and the fact the show can be binged in one weekend is not a bad thing – certainly, there is little feeling that the narrative could be stretched out any further and a second series seems unlikely.

But for those unfamiliar to the genre and its bunny boiler trappings that so devoured the late 1980s movies, Malice offers a reasonable slice of escapism – however, it does feel like had it taken a slightly more unpredictable route, it could have been a killer series to cap off the end of 2025.

All six episodes of Malice were viewed for the purposes of this review.
Malice premieres on Prime Video on Friday, November 14, with all six episodes releasing.