rdoyle29 Lolita Davidovich runs into former boyfriend Steve Bauer and starts a steamy affair. Her husband John Lithgow has given up his psychiatric practice to raise their daughter, and she feels neglected as he devotes all his time to their kid. After a fairly bizarre series of dream sequences, she finds out her husband isn't who she thinks he is, kicking off an odyssey of psychotic twins, not-quite-so-dead fathers, murder, child kidnappings and split personalities.I have seen this film a couple of times, and thought it was a brave attempt that didn't really work. I've now watched the new director's cut, and while it fixes some problems ... it still doesn't work. It fixes one major problem by not front-loading a lot of reveals about Lithgow and allowing more of the film to play out as a series of revelations. However, the first part that now focuses on Davidovich, is a fairly incoherent series of scenes of her suddenly waking up and pulling the rug out from under the viewer. Strangely, this cut seems to think that the viewer will be surprised by Lithgow's true nature, but really ... it so badly telescoped that I can't imagine anyone not seeing every surprise coming a mile away.Truth be told ... many De Palma films relay on ridiculous plot twists and silly reveals, but they do so with style and elegance. This film ultimately fails because it substitutes weird, awkward staging and clumsy sequences where you expect elegance.

moonspinner55 Brian De Palma should never be left to his own devices. Working alongside a creative support team, the talented director still manages to borrow from every manual in the book, yet his films are usually entertaining. Left to himself, as he is here, the results become a torpid series of sticky hijinks--a grab-bag of ideas taken not just from De Palma's heroes, but blatant steals from his own pictures! John Lithgow has been preconditioned to give a bravura actor's turn as a child psychologist whose personality has been 'split' by his nefarious mad-doctor father; when Lithgow spies his unsatisfied wife having an affair with a former flame, he goes off the deep end, resulting in a series of incoherent violent attacks aided by a trouble-making twin brother who doesn't really exist. Cinematographer Stephen H. Burum does some interesting things with his camera, and yet the art direction lets him down (the colors congeal and the film ends up looking chintzy, a problem Burum had earlier on "Body Double", also a De Palma film). Lithgow cackles, acts the hipster, dresses in drag, the works. However, all these fancy tricks--and De Palma's silly scare theatrics--cannot save the picture from doing a fast fade. *1/2 from ****

videorama-759-859391 The great DePalma is a wondrous god of suspense, only with this one, he's falling very short it it, throwing in the usual DePalma tricks. You'll spot these, especially if you've seen seen Body Double, where he's rounded up a couple of his Scarface favs, for this, great actor, Henry, one, especially wasted here, playing the good guy this time, as a cop, who honestly looks like he's rather be somewhere else. I for one don't blame him. Fantastic Lithgow, plays a father, who's taken way too much interested in his child, and "No" he's not a pedophile. He suffers from Split Personality, where he's alto ego, a cocky, tougher, gruff bad guy, his adviser, who I didn't particularly like, is the one pulling the strings. There are a couple of others, nearly all, you won't meet anyhow. His conditioned is only worsened when his wife, (Davidovich) is messing around, with younger hottie (Bauer) which sets him on a path of murder and setting Bauer up. What amazed me here, was there was no real surprises, where Lithgow's great performance, and Sternhagen's as an old criminal psychologist, these two deserved much better material. This is a very dreary and sleepy thriller where the sunny color format here, suited it to a tee. The last imaginary image with Lithgow donning a women's wig, kind of owe's it to us. Some De Palma fans will quite disappointed with this one. Like it, just for the actors.

oOoBarracuda After watching Carlito's Way, and positively falling in love with the film, I did what I typically tend to do, and begin seeking out more works from the director. I was a mixed bag in regards to Brian De Palma before Carlito's Way, I had seen Carrie, Scarface, and The Untouchables. I nearly despise Scarface, and thought Carrie was "alright" but Carlito's Way enticed me to see more of his work. De Palma made Raising Cain in 1992, just one year before Carlito's Way. Other than knowing of the director's involvement, you could not have convinced me that these films were by the same person. As different in tone as they are in storyline, Raising Cain follows a child psychologist destined to finish the work of his father, leading a double life unbeknownst to his wife. Coming off a bit like a made-for-TV movie, Raising Cain was a bizarre journey into the psyche of someone with Dissociative identity disorder. Child psychologist Dr. Carter Nix (John Lithgow) spends a lot of time with his daughter, almost to an obsessive degree. This arrangement works well for his busy oncologist wife, Jenny (Lolita Davidovich). Although, Jenny sometimes feels uncomfortable by the amount of time Carter spends with their daughter, and his level of involvement in her daily life, Jenny's friends keep telling her hos much they wish their husbands were even a bit like Carter, putting her mind temporarily at ease. Just as her fears begin to resurface again, she rekindles an old romance with a man she met at the hospital years before.Jenny being preoccupied with her old flame puts her motherly duties aside and is more than willing to allow Carter the amount of time he has become used to having with their daughter. What Jenny doesn't know, is that Carter leads a whole other life that she knows nothing about wherein he kidnaps children to perform experiments on them with his father who is believed to be dead. After finding out about his wife's affair, Carter summons his brother "Cain" to kill his wife and incriminate her lover. When Jenny survives and begins to find out just what her husband is up to, she begins a chase with the police to find her daughter before Carter can replicate his deranged father's experiments. There is a lot to unpack in Raising Cain, as there often is in a film dealing with Dissociative identity disorder. De Palma was certainly at what seems to be his most unhinged in Raising Cain, not afraid to create a story line difficult to follow fraught with confusion and unsettling imagery. Raising Cain suffers a bit from its zany approach. Not that a film needs a strict genre, but the film definitely couldn't decide what it wanted to be. In parts horror, other parts suspense, and other parts psychological thriller; Raising Cain attempts to fulfill any genre it can, succeeding nowhere. John Lithgow seems grossly miscast, which is unfortunate because, in one way or another, his is the face the audience sees on screen the most. The film did have an engaging sound design, preventing one from turning the film off before it ends. The sound is actually the most engaging aspect of the film, which shouldn't be the case in a film as all over the place as this one. I did enjoy the same wonderful low angle shots so prevalent in Carlito's Way, so that was a plus. Ultimately, Raising Cain never picks a lane, preventing it from speeding away effectively in any of them, reminiscent of a Lifetime movie that only putters once it gets in the air.