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- Amazon Prime’s new thriller Malice stars Jack Whitehall and David Duchovny in a gripping psychological drama
- Set in Greece, the 6-part series follows a mysterious man infiltrating a wealthy family with sinister intentions
- The show has received praise for its binge-worthy plot
You can’t throw a rock on the TV landscape without hitting a show about the terrible lives of those with tremendous wealth. In just the last few months we’ve had The Girlfriend and All Her Fault.
Now, it’s Malice over on Amazon Prime, with all six episodes now streaming just in time for what’s shaping up to be a rainy, chilly weekend. Joy.
The show sees a mysterious man infiltrate an uber-wealthy family, in the vein of Saltburn, but this is set across the postcard backdrop of Greece.
Who plays the mysterious man who starts to display hints of psychopathy the more we go along? Jack Whitehall. Yes, we were shocked too.
His arch nemesis is played by The X-Files icon David Duchovny, whose life starts to go topsy-turvy since Whitehall’s Adam Healey has a vendetta against him and everything he holds dear.
The psychological thriller saw Whitehall take direct inspiration from another similarly gorgeously set show, Ripley.
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Whitehall told Metro in an interview ahead of the show’s release: ‘That was definitely one of the things that we watched.
‘As we were filming it, [Andrew Scott’s] Ripley came out and his performance is fantastic.
‘I guess probably in our version, it’s closer to the Matt Damon take on that character, where he presents a little bit more effervescence and charm, and then there’s a real kind of gear shift in that movie, and I think the same is true of this.
‘We really do lull the audience in and then pull the rug… and I love those kinds of thrillers and this is very much one of those.’
Also speaking to Metro, Duchovny explained how Whitehall’s role was ‘tougher’ to play than Matt Damon’s iconic film version of The Talented Mr Ripley.
Metro’s thoughts on Malice
TV Reporter Milo Pope shares his take…
For a show marketed for its shocking, thrilling twists it felt strangely quiet and conveniently obvious, even with Jack Whitehall set loose as a murderous, twisted parasite on Duchovny’s flawed family.
Whitehall is clearly a talented actor, but one can’t help but think he would be more suited to a dramedy, with less out-and-out horror and killing.
Given the strength of today’s TV landscape, Malice just doesn’t deliver a story gripping enough to compete.
‘You look at Ripley, I mean, clearly there’s something off about the guy,’ he says. ‘What Jack has to do, he can’t be giving that away. He has to seem like the perfect guy.
‘Ripley does not seem like the perfect guy. He seems like a right kind of weirdo. So Jack has to maintain some of that charm that he has naturally, but also be a weirdo underneath. So I think it’s tougher.’
You can now see how the two measure up for yourself on Amazon Prime. The show only just dropped, so we haven’t yet seen the consensus from viewers, from the critic reviews are promising.
The Guardian’s four-star review described the show as hugely bingeable, writing: ‘The X-Files star is at his charismatic best as a ruthless multimillionaire who hires Jack Whitehall as a sinister nanny.’
Meanwhile, The Telegraph wrote: ‘Mercifully, it’s a drama that doesn’t take itself very seriously. It’s sunny and silly.’
Malice is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
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