When car dealer Charlie Babbitt learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home to Cincinnati, where he discovers that he has a savant older brother named Raymond and that his father's $3 million fortune is being left to the mental institution in which Raymond lives. Motivated by his father's money, Charlie checks Raymond out of the facility in order to return with him to Los Angeles. The brothers' cross-country trip ends up changing both their lives.
Everything about the acting and direction of Rain Man is so exquisitely calibrated and so right that it's all too easy to forget how much could have gone wrong.
– Desmond Ryan,
Philadelphia Inquirer,
13 Jan 2014
fresh:
A fascinating, often very moving, frequently funny film.
– Jay Boyar,
Orlando Sentinel,
13 Jan 2014
fresh:
It's an honorable effort, touched by a certain lightness and grace.
– Dave Kehr,
Chicago Tribune,
13 Jan 2014
fresh:
What no one can argue is that Rain Man is Cruise's quantum leap, so that it can be said unblushingly that he holds his own with the masterly Hoffman.
– Sheila Benson,
Los Angeles Times,
20 Feb 2013
fresh:
The strength of the film is really that of Cruise's performance, his finest since Risky Business.