Prime Video has just added a highly addictive new thriller series

The show features a great lead performance by a comedian playing against type.

The show follows Adam (Jack Whitehall, Fresh Meat), an English tutor employed by the wealthy couple, Jules and Damien (Christine Adams and Raza Jaffrey), to better educate their children.

The tutor winds up accompanying the family as they go on holiday to Greece. This is to stay at the luxurious villa of their even richer friends: venture capitalist Jamie Tanner (David Duchovny, The X-Files) and his ex-model wife, Nat (Carice van Houten, Game of Thrones).

Nat instantly takes a liking to Adam. Though the cynical Jamie is at first apprehensive about the tutor, he eventually warms to him as well.

Very soon, however, it becomes clear that there is more to Adam than meets the eye and that the tutor may have dark intentions in mind for the Tanners.

JOE has seen the first two episodes of Malice, and while it doesn't have the most original set-up (recalling the likes of Parasite, Saltburn, The Talented Mr Ripley and The White Lotus), it is telling a classic and always compelling type of tale: that of the mysterious, outwardly kind stranger infiltrating a person's life or family with sinister motivations.

What makes the new thriller stand out slightly from the pack of similar movies and shows, however, is the surprisingly strong against-type lead performance from comedian Jack Whitehall.

As the invader Adam in Malice, the Bad Education and Fresh Meat star deploys his now trademark affability and poshness as a cover. After all, it's what ingratiates him into Duchovny's wealthy patriarch's orbit.

Yet, Whitehall also proves revelatory at conjuring a Tom Ripley-esque darkness lurking just beneath his harmless facade.

This more dangerous side to the character manifests itself excitingly and chillingly in brief moments throughout the first two episodes, whenever Adam finds himself threatened or needs to execute a part of his still enigmatic plan for the Tanners.

On top of this, though, Malice unfolds its plot at a pacy clip. The supporting cast is excellent (Duchovny is a lot of fun as a rich, sardonic sleazeball).

Plus, it's always compelling when a thriller plays out in a gorgeous, exotic location and the viewer gets a vicarious taste of how the wealthy may live.

Where to watch Malice

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All six episodes of Malice are streaming on Prime Video now.