Watching Rain Man

I've had this DVD sat on my table for a couple of weeks now. Its been hanging around at the bottom of the Top 250 list and I hadn't seen it. By the nature of the beast this means I've got to watch it. I've popped it into the player and checked the site. Son of a bitch. Its dropped off the list. Still about 15 minutes in now, may as well finish it. Who knows if it'll come back on one day? Also My Neighbour Totoro has rejoined the list and I've seen that one. Just a warning there will be Spoilers but you've had since 1988 to watch it, as have I.

Well so far its Tom Cruise being Tom Cruise but a dickish version of himself. Its quite bizzare seeing Ramada from Hot Shots in something else too. This is going to be like Forest Gump isn't it? Its going to be a heartwarming tale involving a mentally handicapped guy. And here he is. Hoffman has appeared and He's an excellent driver. What's the age difference between Cruise and Hoffman? I'm not buying them as brothers.

Maybe its just this film is old and well known but I feel I've seen it before. Or its not going to be heart warming at all. Its going to be a tale of a young man taking advantage of a handicapped man for money. Possibly with some redemption at the end. About half an hour in now and quite bored. Hoffman is good but its been parodied so much over the years that it has lost some of its impact. Although Hoffman about to stumble upon them having sex is a funny scene.

Hoffman or should I say Ray's freakout about the planes was a shock. It came out of nowhere and was the first sign we've had that Ray isn't a calm person and on a knife edge with his semi-normality. From what I can tell Autism was not as well known back in '88 from the reaction of the nurse at the doctors. Maybe that is why it is so popular. When people first saw it, it was something new. Nowadays we're more used to te concept of autistic folk even if we don't know them ourselves, exactly what autism is or how we'd deal with it.

There was a good scene in the bathroom which gives the film its title where Rain Man is shown to be a corruption of Raymond as said by Charlie when he was little. Also the baby burn bath tub part of the same scene was affecting.

Looks like a gambling scam is getting under way. This won't end well, I predict. Amazinigly it did.

And the film got me in the end. Yes, it dragged at times. Yes, I felt like I'd seen it before. But by the end I did care about Raymond and Charlie. It may have starte out about money but it wasn't by the end. I wouldn't put it in the top 250 films I've ever seen but I'd recommend it to others. It's managed to avoid the schmaltz I was worried about but just not enough happened. It'd be nice to see Cruise in some more films like this now though. Ones which are more character based rather than Star vehicles. Films like this and Magnolia show why he's a star much more than Mission Impossible 2. I'm going to give it a 7 which is a high one.

Edit: Just checked the Imdb tracking site and Rain Man has snuck back in at 249 so I've ticked it off and I've now watched 117 of the Top 250 films. That's just under 47%. Another 8 films and I make halfway. Pfft.