RAIN MAN
A film review by David Alba, Jr.
Copyright 1989 David Alba, Jr.
Over his illustrious career, Dustin Hoffman has turned in stellar performances: Ratso Rizzo in MIDNIGHT COWBOY, Lenny Bruce in LENNY, a single parent in KRAMER VS. KRAMER, an actor turned actress in TOOTSIE, a senile man in DEATH OF A SALESMAN and what may be his finest role, Raymond Babbit in RAIN MAN.
Dustin Hoffman portrays Raymond Babbit, an autistic savant, and Tom Cruise stars as Raymond's brother Charlie Babbit. Charlie makes his living by dealing very high-priced cars (Porsche, Lamborghini, etc). Charlie soon learns about his father's death, and at the reading of the will he learns that his father has given the bulk of the estate to a brother that he never new existed. After Charlie learns about the whereabouts of his brother, and after he learns that his brother is autistic, Charlie plans to kidnap Raymond in order to get half of his inheritance, which he feels is due him. Raymond and Charlie embark on a cross-country trip. It is while they are traveling through the country that Charlie learns about Raymond's extraordinary skills.
This is an excellent movie, which has perhaps one flaw. I think it is the fact that director Barry Levinson did not focus more on what being an autistic sevant is really like. The director shows us a little bit about autistic people, but he did not go into more depth on the subject. Look for Dustin Hoffman's name come Oscar time. He is one of this generation's finest actors.
Barry Levinson, has directed some great films in the past: THE NATURAL, DINER, TIN MEN, and GOOD MORNING VIETNAM. With RAIN MAN he has continued in that tradition of great filmmaking.
Rating: +3
David Alba Jr
Naperville, IL
att!ihlpa!alba
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews