Ed's Review Dot Com

United Artists, The Guber-Peters Company, Star Partners II Ltd.,

Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Valeria Golino, Gerald R. Molen, Jack Murdock, Michael D. Roberts, Ralph Seymour, Lucinda Jenney, Bonnie Hunt

Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) is a fast talking LA businessman who is estranged from his father since he was a young man. When a sudden call tells him his father has died, he heads back East because he thinks he hitthe motherlode. But he’s in for a few surprises. He finds out he has an older brother nobody ever told him about, Raymond Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman) who is in an institute with severe autism. His father has left his fortune to Raymond setting off many questions in Charlie’s mind, the largest being, “Why didn’t they ever tell me I had a brother”. But his greed kicks in and he kidnaps Raymond from the institution and heads of on a cross country journey thinking if he takes his brother, he’ll have access to his father’s fortune. Dustin Hoffman won an Oscar for his portrayal of Raymond in this classic film from 1988.

My daughter is studying psychology in college and she had never seen this film. So I decided to get it for her and me to watch together. I had not seen this film since 1988, and although I really enjoyed it very much back then, I was amazed at how much I’ve changed since 1988. This film has a lot of heart, and we both enjoyed it and my comment when she said what a jerk Charlie Babbitt was, is “Yes, he’s got an awful lot to learn”. And learn he did. It’s amazing how little we knew about autism back in 1988 when this was made. We’ve made lots of progress since then. But it’s nice to see how things were understood so little back then. There have been some criticism of Dustin Hoffman and how it was portrayed, but personally I think he did an excellent job. Tom Cruise was also very good in making the transformation. Based on a true story, back in those days, meant a lot of poetic license to make it more dramatic, but all in all it was a great film. I decided to put it in my blog because it’s one of those films that you ought to pick up again if if you haven’t seen it in almost 25 years, or especially if you’ve never seen it.

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