Brian De Palma has had his periodic successes (e.g., The Untouchables), which perhaps makes it all the more frustrating to witness something like Raising Cain, which - after much consideration - I would have to say is one of the five worst movies I have ever seen. That he wrote the screenplay is one more reason to be upset.
The storyline is laughable, the acting is uniformly dreadful (even credible actors like Lithgow and Davidovich offer cringe-worthy performances), De Palma's blatant I-wish-I-were-Hitchcock direction has never been more pitiful - or unsuccessful - and the movie's climactic scene is so inane, so obviously contrived (if you _must_ watch this, you'll see what I mean by the truck carrying the sundial doing nothing the entire climax except strategically backing up and going forward), that you will be tempted to simply turn off the VCR. Let me save you the temptation: just don't rent it at all.
The storyline is laughable, the acting is uniformly dreadful (even credible actors like Lithgow and Davidovich offer cringe-worthy performances), De Palma's blatant I-wish-I-were-Hitchcock direction has never been more pitiful - or unsuccessful - and the movie's climactic scene is so inane, so obviously contrived (if you _must_ watch this, you'll see what I mean by the truck carrying the sundial doing nothing the entire climax except strategically backing up and going forward), that you will be tempted to simply turn off the VCR. Let me save you the temptation: just don't rent it at all.