YMMV / Absence of Malice

• One-Scene Wonder: Assistant U.S. Attorney General Wells only appears in the penultimate scene, which he dominates by being a gruff, snarky Badass Bureaucrat and Reasonable Authority Figure. Plenty of critics and casual fans give him more praise than main cast members with six times as much screen time. Despite his limited screen time, Wells is one of the better-remembered characters Wilford Brimley ever played in his long career.
• Signature Scene: The scene where everyone is gathered together for a legal accounting is probably better-known than anything else in the movie. This is due to Gallagher's elaborate plan for revenge brilliantly achieving fruition, Megan's Character Development, and One-Scene Wonder Wells showing up.
• The Woobie:
  • Michael Gallagher is a law-abiding businessman who is falsely accused of murdering a union official as part of a cynical political ploy. His business is ruined due to union pressure, he's threatened with death by his own family (the ones his accuser is really after), and his best friend Theresa commits suicide after the woman Gallagher loves publicly exposes Theresa's Dark Secret. During the final act, he turns into a small-scale Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds and sets out to destroy his enemies' careers.
  • Catholic school teacher Theresa Perrone is utterly dejected and miserable for every single second she's onscreen. She's forced to confess to having an abortion to save Michael from a false murder charge and is dismayed when Megan writes about it in the paper. She's seen stealing her neighbors' newspapers in a desperate attempt to delay them finding out and later commits suicide in her father's house after taking refuge there.