Raising Cain

Mr. De Palma's nightmare in technicolor (or its equivalent) makes the viewer long for film that can be recorded over. What a waste. I would rather have a colonoscopy than have to view this film again. Mr. Lithgow performed well, but not well enough to float this anvil.

Possibly the most entertainingly sill film I've ever seen... ***POSSIBLE SPOILERS*** Raising Cain is almost like a parody of a De Palma film in some places, with the extravagant camera moves and blatant Hitchcock rip-offs, but I mean that in a good way. The film was often entertaining, the performances were generally OK (except for John Lithgow, who was as enjoyably over-the-top as ever) and even though it's made patently obvious from the very beginning that the main two characters Lithgow is playing are actually the same, the ending did come as a bit of a surprise. It's sometimes scary, sometimes funny, and often laughably absurd, but still highly watchable. Raising Cain is certainly not classic De Palma, clearly not up to the standards of Carrie, Dressed to Kill or Blow Out, but it is a very entertaining film all the same, and more proof that he should be making more of the typical De Palma films and less of the Hollywood guff. 8/10

LOL, I see others have rated this as the worst movie ever. I am glad I am not alone. The worst, most unfun and least entertaining movie I ever saw. I like John Lithgow and am interested in just about everything he is in but even he could not save this movie. I remember who I was with, my age, the theatre, time of day and more 15 years later.....that is how traumatically bad the experience was. Dream inside of a dream sequences are lame and when I left I still did not understand what was going on. Me and my friends walked out after about 45 agonizing minutes. Enough said.

The psychologist Dr. Carter Nix (John Lithgow) leaves a park with his little daughter Amy and takes a ride with the mother of another child. He tries to convince her to leave her son travel to Norway for an experiment with his father but she does not accept. Dr. Nix uses chloroform to take her boy and leaves the unconscious woman in the trunk of her car with his brother Cain to get rid of her. His wife Dr. Jenny Nix (Lolita Davidovich) is worried about his obsession for Amy. When Jenny meets her former lover Jack (Steven Bauer) in a store, she has a love affair with him and plans to leave her husband. However Carter discovers their love affair and he kills a babysitter and leaves clues incriminating Jack. Then he suffocates Jenny with a pillow, puts her body into her car and submerges it in a swamp. Carter goes to the police department claiming that his wife and his daughter are missing. He also tells that he had seen a stranger in the park. Lt. Terri (Gregg Henry) and Sgt. Cally (Tom Bower) that are in charge of the investigation asks Carter to do a sketch of the suspect. However a veteran detective recalls the case of Carter's father and he summons Dr. Waldheim (Frances Sternhagen) that discloses how deranged his father was. Out of the blue, Jenny returns and now the police needs to find where the kidnapped children are. "Raising Cain" is a deceptive thriller by Brian De Palma, with a flawed, conventional, predictable and poorly story. The plot is unbelievable, commercial and silly, with the strange situations easily resolved. How could Jenny escape from a car submerged in a swamp? Her infidelity that triggers completely madness in Carter becomes "politically correct". Jack saving Amy with the spear coming toward him is ridiculous. The conclusion might be a joke or a tribute to "Dressed to Kill". My vote is five. Title (Brazil): "Síndrome de Caim" ("Cain Sindrome")

Despite the hordes of comments made about this film explaining where it 'went wrong', it appears a great deal of these reviews are from viewers failing to recognise the directors tongue in cheek intentions. The film is a satirical thriller/horror that abides by the conventions of the genre, though twists them. Instead of concentrating on what the audience doesn't know and building up to a yawn-full climax, a cliché that Scream parodies, the film takes on the perspective of the psycho, presenting the audience with more information than other characters. The obvious influences, or should I say homages, to Hitchcock show De Palma's respect for his predecessors, though it appears De Palma is also presenting us with a parody of Psycho, which is a reason in itself to watch this movie. Along with other directors (Including Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg and Lucas), Brian De Palma has been labelled as a 'movie brat', and I think this film is a prime example of a film made by this generation of filmmakers.

The hit-and-miss DePalma has churned out a few duds in his time, but none worse than this insufferable train wreck of a film. Actually, calling it a film is giving it the benefit of the doubt, as it resembles not so much a movie as a highlight reel of every cinematic trope DePalma has used in his career. (Which were, of course, already ripped off from other directors when he used them the FIRST time.) If the cast of SNL or MAD TV were making a spoof of DePalma films, it might feel like this. (Although it couldn't possibly be this bad, not even if it starred Rob Schneider.) The clumsy, inept proceedings feel rushed and sloppy, as though this thing were just cranked out as some sort of tax write-off, or to satisfy a contractual agreement. If you can manage to stay awake until the ending, you'll get to see the only gimmicky shot in the film that DePalma has NEVER used before! But have no fear, he hasn't gone and gotten original; the shot is stolen directly from Dario Argento's TENEBRE, which was made 10 years earlier. So I guess that's the whole purpose of the film: to add one more stolen gimmick to DePalma's already bloated bag of tricks.

Brian De Palma seems to generally make two kinds of films,those aimed at a mass audience {such as The Untouchables,Carrie,Carlito's Way,Mission Impossible} and those he makes to please himself and real fans {such as Femme Fatale,Blow Out,Body Double,Snake Eyes}. Dressed to Kill is somewhere in between. Raising Cain is definitely in the second category. Unfortunately,even to fans of De Palma it will probably disappoint. It has points of interest,but overall is something of a mess,in fact it has a hurried,unfinished feel to it,as if it was made in a rush. Somewhat toning down the expected sex and violence {although there is a disturbing element of child abuse},De Palma shows much of the film from the point of view of his psycho,which is interesting and allows John Lithgow full rein to have fun with his role{s}. Several times we are shown something,only for the film to double back and show that something else actually happened. This may reflect the fractured state of it's protagonist but may just be downright infuriating to some. Disappointedly,Raising Cain only has one great De Palma set piece near the end,leaving one feeling somewhat short changed for thrills. The film also has little of the visual inventiveness one expects from De Palma,in fact for much of the time it's visually dull,although at least there's a lush Pino Donnaggio score to hear. Along the way De Palma peppers the film with film homages,some of them surprising {Ghost Story,Peeping Tom,Tenebrae} and some of them from his own {Dressed to Kill,Sisters},but there's not enough originality to counter them. Raising Cain is basically a director having fun. Unfortunately,it may be difficult for viewers to join in this time.

Brian de Palma was once a great director who could do magic with his keen sense of suspense that paid a heavy homage to the works of Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and Sergei Eisenstein. However, he tried to sever himself from his patent themes of choice and tackled other genres. While he excelled with his crime drama THE UNTOUCHABLES, he failed miserably with THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES. So by 1992 he decided (like most directors of a known style going through a bad patch) to go back to what he was known for. One problem, though. Assuming the role of screenwriter became his big misstep because as much as the idea works on paper, his dialog almost ruins the movie. It's the same thing that affected DRESSED TO KILL in which Nancy Allen was given some horrendous lines to say even when that film is a fantastic exercise in suspense and a correct reconstruction of a well-known story -- that of PSYCHO. However, de Palma creates a masterful dream-like world not that different thematically from the worlds of Luis Bunuel and his bourgeois, caught in the middle of their own frenzied dreams which are harbingers of nightmares, waking up to find they may still be in the middle of something not quite real. The story opens up layers upon layers of mystique and mystery and reveals information only in fits and spurts, which leaves us in a state of wondering what the hell are we watching at times. Indeed, it may take one more view to get the impenetrable mess that RAISING CAIN is, and this is due to the fact that so many of Carter's personalities come forth like an unseen cast operating only under John Lithgow's chameleon-like persona. In showing the two characters battling for the upper hand by placing Lithgow being a tree, for example -- a technique Peter Jackson would use for scenes in which Gollum and Smeagol shared their twisted, tragic banter about the wretched Ring in his LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS -- he has one of the best moments of duplicity ever seen on screen, and one that doesn't need split screens or special effects to be potent. But interesting as well is how another character is introduced, also under the persona of Lithgow. Margo, a kind woman, is only described by Lithgow's own words as being one "who looks after the children." I find it interesting that for Carter to be set free he has to let this female personality come forth and lead him to sure escape. As to whether she will remain as a dominant personality when she appears in the final reel remains a mystery but like Bunuel films, it's there, unexplained, shown mainly for a shock tactic a la UN CHIEN ANDALOU, but in a less threatening way. RAISING CAIN is a pretty slick movie that should be seen at least twice. There is so much happening with its plot, and so much interpretations that can be given to the dreams that blend in with the reality which in itself may be a dream that it may well be one of his better films, underrated because of the fracas of BONFIRE. It's intoxicating, and a Brian de Palma movie, this is it, hands-down. Every scene is a hoot to watch: it's as if the director had a huge bag of tricks that were part of his style and he had decided to let them all out in a flood of images and great sequences. And this is not something directors of a certain vision can say they do. I have to say I loved every homage and element thrown in. The dream within a dream sequence, Dr. Waldheim's (Frances Sternhagen) explanation that follows her throughout a winding set of hallways before having the camera zoom in on a victims horrified face, Carter's wife Jenny's (Lolita Davidovich) sudden awakening inside a car that is sinking into a swamp (another PSYCHO link) and the final showdown happening at several levels and in slow motion. If anyone can do high suspense today, it's de Palma.

Oh dear , a thriller about a deranged man who kidnaps children . What's not to like ? Apart from the premise you mean ? Three other things 1 ) Dream sequences - The film drowns in these sequences . Someone dreams they're being murdered and they wake it and discover it was all a bad dream . I was actually shocked that the ending didn't revolve around the cop out ending but that would have been just too obvious . It should also be pointed out that because of these sequences the narrative ends up confusing the audience . For example a couple commit adultery by having sex in a woods but they have sex for a ridiculous amount of time which led me to believe it was another dream . But it wasn't . At least I don't think it was . Oh I'm so confused 2 ) John Lithgow's performance - Oh dear . Remember Jon Voight in ANACONDA ? I think Voight based his performance on Lithgow's style in this movie 3 ) Brian De Palma's direction - CARRIE was very memorable due to De Palma's slow motion photography , his tracking shots and characters talking without any dialogue being heard . However it seems that he's a one trick pony . Nearly all his films contain this idiosyncratic technique , THE FURY contained it as did DRESSED TO KILL and THE UNTOUCHABLES and CASUALTIES OF WAR was almost ruined by it and here it's totally unnecessary . I should also point out that a pram features in the climax like it did in THE UNTOUCHABLES . Time to move onto some other directing style Mr De Palma

Despite the fact that director Brian De Palma is an awesome director (Scarface), his talent was not evident in this waste of 95 minutes and 6 bucks at Wal-Mart. I hated it!! John Lithgow gave a mediocre performance,I mean yea he was frightening, but It was his acting not his character that I found to be scary. Maybe it was the high expectations I had for a Brian De Palma film,or maybe this movie just genuinely sucked. Now I know I am going to offend some people but honestly, did you guys even watch a minute of the film. Trust me I am doing a public service by telling you to save your money and go bye something better.