Brian DePalma Movies: Raising Cain

If you only know John Lithgow from his role on Third Rock from the Sun, Raising Cain is a Brian De Palma movie worth taking a look at. (See Brian De Palma Movies for a list of his films.) Lithgow portrays at least four different characters--maybe more--it's hard to keep up. But almost all of his characters are sinister and creepy, even the "good guys."

Raising Cain has drawn comparisons to Psycho, and it's easy to see why after watching it. Brian De Palma has always been one of the more cinematically literate directors, and he's known for including homages to various films in his movies. This homage is more of an overall thematic one rather than a shot for shot homage like De Palma used in The Untouchables.

Even the score resembles that of a Hitchcock film. It's almost as if they were trying to channel Bernard Hermann. If so, they succeeded.

John Lithgow is a man with multiple personalities. His wife and daughter are unaware of his condition, but his wife (Lolita Davidovich) begins to have suspicions about his behavior. She's also carrying on with another man (Steve Bauer), which doesn't help matters any.

Raising Cain has some dream sequences that aren't clearly dream sequences, and if you're not paying attention, you can end up really confused by the plot. In fact, my lovely wife, who was paying attention, got a little bit lost. But by the end of the movie, she was a fan.

Lithgow's performance is outstanding. At first, having seen him play that goofy alien on Third Rock from the Sun for so long, I had a hard time seeing his characters for what they were in this movie. But after a while, his acting spell took hold of me. No small feat, considering how indelibly locked in my memory is his Third Rock persona.

Sadly, the other performances in the movie are average at best. Lolita Davidovich is beautiful, as always, but her character isn't particularly likable at all. And she seems to have no emotions in scenes where she should be an emotional wreck.

Steven Bauer looks worried throughout the movie. He plays a one note character, but it's a shame that a stronger performance wasn't forthcoming.

Honestly, Raising Cain is a one man show, and that man is John Lithgow. I give this movie three stars out of five. It's a good movie, but not a great one. Fans of Hitchcock will likely enjoy it, as will fans of Brian De Palma.