Raising Cain

This movie is fine; there are some really great moments in it, but for the most part it just feels like a slightly above par thriller. If you're looking for something to watch on a rainy Saturday morning, this isn't a bad film to land on. Lithgow is great fun to watch, De Palma's homages to Hitchcock are great, and the editing in the director's cut is pretty unique, but overall this film runs over ground already well tread upon.

If there's one word that sums up Raising Cain, it's 'audacious': Brian De Palma, a director not known for his restraint, goes all out with this crazy psychological thriller, delivering a baffling non-linear narrative, commanding a bonkers performance from star John Lithgow, and shamelessly showboating with some outrageous visual set-pieces, including plenty of his trademark slow-motion (accompanied by a lush Psycho-style score by Pino Donaggio) and an extremely impressive, very long continuous take. Raising Cain is a film that appears to be self-parodic, De Palma seemingly mocking his own ostentatious style; I don't know whether this was by design or by accident - either way, it's hard to not have fun with such a delightfully daft, OTT movie.

Lithgow plays husband and doting father Carter, whose wife Jenny (Lolita Davidovich) embarks on an affair with her previous lover, Jack (Steven Bauer). Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Jenny, her husband suffers from multiple personality disorder, and is instrumental in a spate of local kidnappings, which ultimately leads to him framing Jack for murder. The plot jumps back and forth through time, making it extremely hard to follow at times, but it eventually pulls together for the final act, in which Carter (as one of his alter-egos, Cain) and his presumed dead father (also Lithgow), threaten the life of Jenny's daughter Amy (Amanda Pombo).

In addition to the Bernard Hermann style score, De Palma references Psycho with a scene in which Carter pushes a car with his wife's body inside into a marsh, and has his villain dress up as a woman (to evade the police), but this film is not a slavish homage to all things Hitchcock: it's way too unhinged for that. And if I'm not mistaken, there's also a nod to De Palma's Italian counterpart, Dario Argento, the shot in which Jenny kneels down to hug Amy only to reveal that Carter/Cain is standing behind her being borrowed from Tenebrae.

The lunacy culminates in a wonderfully overblown, meticulously orchestrated piece of slow motion chaos that attempts to outdo De Palma's Odessa Steps sequence from The Untouchables, but the preposterous nature of proceedings renders it laughable - and consequently very entertaining if you enjoy schlocky cinema.

6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for the single take that ends in a hilarious close-up of a victim's face: even if you don't like the film as a whole, it's impossible to deny the technical brilliance of that continuous shot.

It's disappointing when a movie starts well and then kind of derails by the end the way Raising Cain does. I'd liken it to another De Palma film from the 90s, Snake Eyes. Each get off to a strong start and have good first halves, but become noticeably less interesting in the second half (though neither is terrible overall).

What works here is John Lithgow. He's really great, and shines when playing the various personalities that his character moves between (whether this is at all accurate about multiple personality disorder at all is a whole other matter, and I'd understand people finding it offensive and dismissing it if they did believe it was an unfair or potentially dangerous depiction).

Funnily enough, the movie starts to feel like it's splitting off in multiple directions, but not in a good or thematic way. Suddenly, Lithgow's wife has a voiceover? And a melodramatic infidelity subplot? Too much time's spent on it- if you have Lithgow doing great acting and it's cut away from so much!

Then there are other various characters who are all introduced awkwardly, and the finale is all a bit underwhelming... it's a shame, because this starts as a very promising psychological thriller, and ends up being a bit disposable by the end. For a good first half and somewhat shaky/not great second half, I think splitting the score halfway to be a 6/10 is fair.

Despite the fact that he wrote a rather unintelligent script for his 1992 effort, director Brian De Palma's "Raising Cain" is still fast, funny, and, occasionally, very scary.

In order not to reveal too much and spoil this wild little roller coaster ride, all I will say is that John Lithgow plays or at least speaks for five very different roles(!)

De Palma isn't at his all-time best, but Lithgow proves that he is one of the great character actors of our time. Rated R. 95 minutes. 6 out of 10.

Lolita Davidovich runs into former boyfriend Steve Bauer and starts a steamy affair. Her husband John Lithgow has given up his psychiatric practice to raise their daughter, and she feels neglected as he devotes all his time to their kid. After a fairly bizarre series of dream sequences, she finds out her husband isn't who she thinks he is, kicking off an odyssey of psychotic twins, not-quite-so-dead fathers, murder, child kidnappings and split personalities.

I have seen this film a couple of times, and thought it was a brave attempt that didn't really work. I've now watched the new director's cut, and while it fixes some problems ... it still doesn't work. It fixes one major problem by not front-loading a lot of reveals about Lithgow and allowing more of the film to play out as a series of revelations. However, the first part that now focuses on Davidovich, is a fairly incoherent series of scenes of her suddenly waking up and pulling the rug out from under the viewer. Strangely, this cut seems to think that the viewer will be surprised by Lithgow's true nature, but really ... it so badly telescoped that I can't imagine anyone not seeing every surprise coming a mile away.

Truth be told ... many De Palma films relay on ridiculous plot twists and silly reveals, but they do so with style and elegance. This film ultimately fails because it substitutes weird, awkward staging and clumsy sequences where you expect elegance.