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If you saw Raising Cain as a book you wouldn't think to pick it up - that is unless you're about to board an airplane and need something fast and cheap and sleazy to get you through the ride. It's a plot that is pretty simple, if you have a penchant for Brian De Palma and/or Alfred Hitchcock. It's about a doctor who has split personalities- all played by John Lithgow- and one of the personalities watches and observes in a psychological-study style of his own child. There's also another layer to this as the nasty-personality (the one created as a child to take in and dish out all of the pain and horror) starts stealing children and killing off mothers and babysitters in a park to help his father's diabolical scheme (the father, by the way, is supposed to be dead). Along the way the doctor's wife is caught up in the craziness- mostly because it's her kid too, and that her affair with another man sets off some of his insanity.It might sound sort of straightforward, but in De Palma's hands it becomes something of an experiment. There's a ten-minute stretch, for example, where it turns into a string of dream sequences- or dreams within dreams- and an extended flashback just after one of the dreams. It's disorienting, and not exactly in a way that suits the movie in a positive artistic goal. It's more like De Palma is fudging about, trying to get his wits after just coming off the Bonfire of the Vanities debacle: take Hitchcock elements and themes (or outright rip-off like the slightly changed car-sinking-in-lake bit from Psycho), and mix it all together to create a diabolical stew.Some of it is flat-out weird, but some of it is very clever, such as a long tracking shot of two police detectives listening (and guiding along) to the old lady giving her exposition about what 'Cain' was all about. And other times De Palma doesn't seem to be totally sure, or maybe it's the audience that can't be sure, if it becomes a subtle parody of his previous preposterous suspense thriller, or if it's just preposterous. But one thing that it's got going for it throughout is Lithgow; this guy just takes these roles and has fun, which is just what is needed. His Carter/Cain/Old Doctor/Josh/Lady characters bring out the range that Lithgow can bring in any performance, here spread out and made equally sympathetic, dastardly, wimpy and innocent, and flat out gone-from-reality.It's not entirely a challenge, per-say, but it raises up Raising Cain into something interesting - even if De Palma is just working out, for better or worse, old ideas made anew, his star can steal the show anytime he damn well pleases, which is often. It's a funny and deranged film that is probably not good, though it's enjoyable on its own stupid-fun-bad-good terms. It is a movie, frankly, split into several ways to look at it.
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