RAIN MAN (1988) *** Dustin Hoffman is just incredible as autistic Raymond Babbitt, bringing out all the charm and wonderment without invoking pity. He has a true philosopher's feel for the paradox of "Who's on first?", compounded by his love of baseball. Tom Cruise does a damn good job as the self-centered yuppie scum (he divorced his father and is now mad about the will) who only begins to become human when he realizes how he can use his brother to cheat at cards in Vegas. Hot Lamborghini's in the same shot as the ugliest Ferrari's I've ever seen is also suspicious. Barry Levinson rides the stars for the most part, but also contributes an intermittant rolling travelogue of the open fields and skies and string of horshoe-shaped pastel neon motels that lead from Cincinnati to Vegas. There's an abbreviated but effective critique of legal hearings involving expert witnesses, but nothing oppressively didactic. The other good bits notwithstanding, this would have been somewhere between forgettable and laughable if not for the Herculean efforts of Hoffman. Definitely pepperoni pizza on Monday. K-mart sucks.
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