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By
NICK ZEGARAC
"Rain Man" is the film that brought public consciousness to autism. Dustin Hoffman stars as Raymond, an autistic survivor who is kidnapped from his sanitarium after his brother, Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise), concocts a plan to extort money from his late father's estate. Charlie is ruthless, greedy and uncaring; all qualities that Charlie's girlfriend, Susanna (Valerie Golino) finally has enough of. She jumps ship, leaving Charlie to look after Raymond by himself. The abandonment leads to a fortuitous bond between the brothers, one in which Charlie finally realizes that he loves his brother but cannot look after him without the aid of specialists at the sanitarium.
Hoffman's ability to immerse himself in his character is startling and effective. Raymond emerges as a deeply wrought, multi-dimensional person to whom the world will always look slightly different. Though criticized at the time the film was released, Tom Cruise's performance is the perfect counterbalance.
MGM/UA has made "Rain Man" available in a special edition and a bare bones edition. Truthfully, though, there is very little to distinguish the two. Both DVDs exhibit identical quality in their transfers of the film. Colors can be rich and vibrant. Flesh tones are not very accurate. Contrast and black levels are solid. There is a hint of pixelization and more than a hint of edge enhancement that sometime distracts. There's quite a bit of film and digital grain during some sequences that is unbecoming and creates an inconsistent quality on an otherwise generally smooth print. The audio is 5.1 and nicely balanced though sounding slightly dated.
On the special edition you get three audio commentaries, a very short featurette on the making of the film and the film's theatrical trailer. On the bare bones edition you only get a theatrical trailer. |
