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Rain Man (1988)
Rate:
10
Viewed:
3/04, 12/24
12/24:
The Academy Awards has a notorious history of screwups.
Came along Rain Man, and they decided to give Dustin Hoffman the Oscar for "Best Actor in a Leading
Role." He was not in the leading role and never was! That would be Mr. Tom Cruise who was doing 90% of the
work while Dustin Hoffman stood there like an idiot, taking the abuse.
It's exactly what I thought in 1989. Tom Cruise got robbed of an Oscar while Dustin Hoffman was at best a supporting
actor. Regardless, it's an outstanding film with a very strong script that's most likely a variation of John
Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. I have no complaints about either's performance. At age 27, Tom Cruise was a
highly mature actor, showing why nobody in modern cinema will ever measure up to him. It's keen to see him and
Dustin Hoffman in the same screen, considering that they did similar coming-of-age films:
Risky Business and The Graduate,
respectively.
As for the term "autistic savant," it became part of the national lexicon when Dustin Hoffman introduced it
in a big way. How his character, Raymond, acted and behaved is accurate. The fact that he was able to do
complicated arithmetic calculations and memorized everything isn't the definition of "genius." His brain
is simply broken, and he's able to see things more clearly than most people possibly can.
On the other side of the coin is the lack of social connection. No matter how often Raymond is asked a question, he
doesn't know what he's saying for an answer whether it's "yeah" or "no." The whole trip has no special meaning
for him; he'll fail to understand the significance of it. When he goes back to Wallbrook, it'll be as if nothing
happened. No matter what, it means a lot to his brother Charlie.
By the way, the title Rain Man is actually meant to be "Raymond" through Charlie's ears when he was a
little boy; he just misheard it and kept that as a memory over the years. When Tom Cruise has a meeting with
two doctors at the end, the long-white-haired guy is Barry Levinson, the director of the film. I'll say Barry was
funny, but he should have slowed down his speaking style and not be so forceful about it. As a matter of fact, he
did it on purpose to make Tom Cruise mad. And yes...Kmart sucks, and that's why it went bankrupt.
All in all, if not for Tom Cruise's exceptional performance, Rain Man could've never worked; a lesser
actor would have made his character unbearably obnoxious.