National Review: Rain Man.

TAIN MAN is about a Los Angeles Rsports-car importer and feckless younger brother, Charlie (Tom Cruise), whose father leaves his $3 million to Charlie's older btother, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), an autistic savant of whose very existence, in a Cincinnati institution, Charlie was unaware. Enraged, Charlie abducts Ray in the hope of somehow acquiring his inheritance, and drives him to L.A. in the white '49 Buick convertible that is just about all his father left him. There ensues a typical comic road movie cum mismatched-buddy movie (are those still two genres or have they become irrevocably fused?) as the brothers drive across Western America and each other nuts. Well, Ray already is, more or less, but he is also a mathematical and mnemonic genius who helps Charlie make a killing at blackjack in Vegas. In return, Charlie's Italian girlfriend teaches Ray to dance and kiss. Since that is as far as it goes, it may not be a fair exchange for the $80,000 Ray wins for Charlie.

By the time the brothers arrive in L.A., Charlie has become seriously fond of Ray-an affection not untinged by considerations of Ray's financial usefulness. By now, Charlie has become accustomed to Ray's weird ways, and Ray-to some extent-to Charlie's normally heedless ones. But the two can't go on together. As Ray is taken back to Cincy, he is close to feeling affection for Charlie, who, genuinely moved, promises to come visit soon. In the old days, when such efforts could be assessed as one-, two-, or three-handkerchief movies, this would have been a one-hankie one; in the era of Kleenex, it is harder to classify.

The problem with the picture is that the writing, by Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow, is sometimes illogical, often overexplanatory, and never more than serviceable. Though Barry Levinson's direction is competent, it allows Hoffman's performance as Ray to wag the movie. Now, Hoffman is an overfussy (you could say egomaniacal) actor who worries every detail of his performance to the point where the actor's bravura matters more than the character's reality. And this Ray, instead of being offset by an equally vital Charlie, has no match in Tom Cruise. With one performance flapping at us from the chandelier, and the other mostly supine on the floor, it's hard to keep both in our field of vision.