Friday, April 07, 2006

Travis Bickle is rolling over in his grave: "Hide and Seek"

There's really no point in lamenting the decline of Robert De Niro these days. I mean, when he spoofed his infamous "Taxi Driver" role in "The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle," all bets were off.

(Just saw the trailer for that one, by the way. No worries. All's well. Remain calm.)

Still, it's just sad to see one the Great Actors of Our Time and Maybe All Time slumming in crap for a paycheck. Hey, I enjoy light fare as much as the next guy -- "PCU," anyone? -- and De Niro has actually chosen some decent roles that weren't Important Movies, i.e. "Meet the Parents," "The Score," even "Cape Fear." But as Bobby D approached 60, his discretion started to be more than a little questionable. Or perhaps you found "Showtime" hilarious?

All of this is to say that I sure as hell wasn't going to pay money to see "Hide and Seek." Alas, I did recently succumb to the "Well, while it's on HBO" trap. Regrets ... I've had a few.

We also get the precocious Dakota Fanning in this would-be thriller. A friend of mine who shall remain nameless once made the mistake of calling little Dakota "hot," thereby inviting severe mocking and inevitable shame once he learned she was born in 1994. Dude, what's wrong with you? I will, however, praise her acting abilities, as she seemed pretty good at such a young age in "I Am Sam" and "War of the Worlds."

Here, Dakota mostly plays quiet and haunted as she and her daddy (De Niro) move away from New York City following a family tragedy. Dad thinks the country air will be good for his girl, but we soon find that Dakota has taken an imaginary friend who may or may not be real. You'd think that would be pretty easy to figure out, but all sorts of spooky doings have De Niro wondering. Drifting in and out of these proceeding are supporting players Famke Janssen, Elisabeth Shue (playing "Elizabeth" ... how confusing) and Dylan Baker.

Here's where I might opine on how the plot developed and tension built and blah blah blah. But get this: I was so sure I knew the inevitable plot twist that I fast-forwarded through the second half of the movie.

Let's let that sink in. I think I'm generous to a fault when it comes to letting a movie play out. Hell, I sat through "Rent." So when a movie is so uninteresting and obvious that I'm willing to gamble on a fast-forward ... well, not good filmmaking, kids. Not good at all. (Is it clear I guessed right?)

I suppose my point is that there have been enough family thrillers and enough decent actors sleepwalking through them that you really need to come up with something at least a little creative if you want to earn our attention. (Not to mention money.) Fortunately, not too many people ponied up to see the De Niro-Dakota Follies, with "Hide and Seek" grossing just over $51 million on a $30 million budget. Even better, I wasted less than an hour instead of the full 101 minutes. That left time to watch one of Bobby's better efforts ... you know, like "The Fan."

1 Comments:

At 10:22 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wish I had read this column before watching Hide and Seek. I don't know what it is about bad horror movies on late-night HBO, but much like the mediocre White Noise and The Forgotten and the completely unwatchable FeardotCom, for some reason I let Hide and Seek pull me in. And unfortunately, HBO doesn't have a fast forward button.

 

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