Rain Man is the kind of touching drama that Oscars are made for--and, sure enough, the film took Academy honours for best picture, director, screenplay and actor (Dustin Hoffman) in 1988. Hoffman plays Raymond, an autistic savant whose late father has left him $3 million in a trust. This gets the attention of his materialistic younger brother, a hot-shot LA car dealer named Charlie (Tom Cruise) who wasn't even aware of Raymond's existence until he read his estranged father's will. Charlie picks up Raymond and takes him on a cross-country journey that becomes a voyage of discovery for Charlie, and, perhaps, for Raymond too. Rain Man will either captivate or irritate you (Raymond's sputtering of repetitious phrases is enough to drive anyone crazy), but it is obviously a labour of love for those involved. Hoffman had been attached to the film for many years, as various directors and writers came and went, but his persistence eventually paid off--kind of like Raymond in Las Vegas. Look for director Barry Levinson in a cameo as a psychiatrist near the end of the film. --Jim Emerson, Amazon.com
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Let's talk straight Dustin Hoffman's performance as the autistic man earns the two stars I've given this film. Otherwise, however, I find it objectionable. It is true that, for reasons still unknown, there are so-called idiots savants, whose disability in one area is balanced out by some splendid capacity in another.
In reality, such abilities are extremely rare. Films such as Rain Man tend to propagate the notion that a defect in one area will have some compensation in another. The truth is that Nature's not as nice as... more info
Boo's Cruise Here again we see Satans felcher Tom Cruise playing a handicapped character looking after unorthodox genius Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman steals the show with his approach to his character's quirky nature, whereas Cruise just fluffs it all up with weak and insensitive portrayal of a shallow and vacous differently special person. Again, what with the subject matter of the film, it is unlikely that Cruise's character will have a death scene owing to the schmaltz factor inherent with these kind of films. Still, if... more info
I Have To Do This Now... I put off watching this film, having bought it, because I thought that a couple of hours of two brothers crossing the USA (and one of them autistic at that) would be a dreadful bore. The same feelings on the part of film producers meant that Rain Man nearly never got made. I was wrong and so were they. This is a brilliant film. I agree that the very end is a little so-so, but the other two hours or so is gripping, moving and interesting in its exposition (through the superb acting of Dustin Hoffman) of the... more info
A must see My favourite movie. Hoffman is brilliant, Cruise is at his most mature. A brilliant, brilliant movie.
![Rain Man [1989]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41S39QPKB7L._SL160_.jpg)
