Our Flick of the Week is ”Rain Man.” Tom Cruise plays a Los Angeles hustler who discovers after his estranged father`s death that he has a long-lost brother to whom his father has left $3 million while giving Cruise nothing in cash.
The brother (Dustin Hoffman) is an autistic man confined to a mental institution. Cruise kidnaps him in an effort to get half of his estate, but during their one-week, cross-country journey, Cruise`s attitude toward his brother changes.
The strength of the film is really that of Cruise`s performance, his finest since ”Risky Business.” Hoffman takes the risky, thankless role of playing someone who is uncommunicative and decidedly uptight. He dares to make the character annoying and frustrating, and the combination of two superior performances makes the movie worth watching.
”Rain Man” is playing at the 900 North Michigan, Webster Place and outlying theaters. R. (STAR)(STAR)(STAR) 1/2
FLICKS PICKS GUIDE
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New this week
– DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS (Chestnut Station, Webster Place and outlying theaters). Michael Caine stars as well-to-do confidence man whose French Riviera turf is invaded by a boorish American hustler (Steve Martin). The opening sequences that set up the conflict are very funny, but then the story falls into a predictable series of a double-crosses. Martin and Caine have their individual moments, but the film doesn`t hang together as a movie. The look is dingy, too. PG. (STAR)(STAR) 1/2
– I`M GONNA GIT YOU SUCKA (Chestnut Station, Woods and outlying). A funny parody of those blaxploitation films from the 1970s. It`s made with the same hip attitude as ”Airplane” and ”The Naked Gun,” but the jokes
unfortunately are paced more slowly. Former black action heroes Bernie Casey and Jim Brown team up to destroy the white Mr. Big. Antonio Fargas does an outlandish parody of his prototypical pimp role. The film is funnier the more you know about the conventions of pictures like ”Super Fly” and ”Shaft,”
but it also works modestly on its own. R. (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
– LITTLE DORRIT (Fine Arts). A superior, six-hour rendering of the Charles Dickens story of a good girl raised in a debtor`s prison section of London. Her principal relationship involves the rise and fall of a good man named Arthur Clennam (Derek Jacobi). Alec Guinness turns in another brilliant performance as the girl`s stern father. Not rated. (STAR)(STAR)(STAR)(STAR)
– RAIN MAN (900 North Michigan, Webster Place and outlying). This week`s Flick of the Week. See above. Rated R. (STAR)(STAR)(STAR) 1/2
MORE FLICKS
Comments on other films playing locally that have been reviewed in The Tribune and synopses of films not yet reviewed:
