Did you people see the same film I saw?

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Second time watching and I chose the Director's Cut this time. And I've got to say, I much prefer it. Quite a hallucinatory experience. Once again, this film held my attention throughout and just flew by. It's absolutely hilarious but also suspenseful and, at times, terrifying. Meshing comedy with horror can be quite a difficult task, so this film is obviously firing on all cylinders. Visually stunning, better pacing throughout the director's edition, wonderful score, and a dreamlike atmosphere. All of these things add up to make a film that's really quite appealing despite what others have said.

After the critical and commercial public flogging he received for his bastardisation of Tom Wolfe's fascinating, multi-layered and often hilarious novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, Brian De Palma turned back to the genre that had served him well early on his career, the psychological thriller. With crime 'biopic' The Untouchables (1987) and the hit-and-miss war drama Casualties of War (1989), De Palma has seemingly turned his back on the world of Hitchockian suspense, but his career was in serious danger. The result was Raising Cain, a movie so utterly ludicrous and ham-fisted that it's a wonder how he is still making movies. Yet, there's something perversely irresistible about the film.Dr. Carter Nix (John Lithgow) is a respected psychologist suffering from multiple personality disorder, who, at the beginning of the movie, chloroforms a young mother and steals her child while being egged on by one of his cockier alter-egos, Cain. His wife Jenny (90's mainstay Lolita Davidovich) is concerned that Carter is spending too much time obsessing over their daughter, who he seems to view more of a subject of study than his own flesh and blood. Jenny rekindles a romance with a former flame, Jack (Steven Bauer), and the two are spotted by Carter making love in the woods. As Carter struggles to keep his many personalities in check, Jenny struggles to separate her dreams from reality.While watching the movie, I kept wondering if this was truly the same De Palma who forged such well-constructed thrillers as Sisters (1973), Dressed to Kill (1980) and Blow Out (1981); films that often carefully towed the line of B-movie daftness yet managed to stay grounded. Is Raising Cain a bad movie? Yes, probably. But with the casting of De Palma's favourite ham John Lithgow and its sickly, TV movie aesthetic, there's something oddly fascinating about its silliness. It attempts to confuse its already convoluted plot even further by staging scenes within dreams within memories within more dreams. While this is certainly frustrating, I was still rooted to my seat, desperate to see how this nonsense plays out. His films are often divisive, but Raising Cain had even the most hardcore De Palma fans questioning their loyalty. Personally, my love far outweighed the hate.

"Raising Cain" is a thriller that's so misguided in its direction that I'm not 100% sure if telling you about the premise is a spoiler or not. I'm going to say that it isn't because there's a casting choice early on that makes the "twist" incredibly obvious but I apologize in advance if for some reason you feel like I end up ruining the movie for you. Like I said, I don't think this is spoiling anything when I tell you the movie is about a guy with multiple personality disorder that is kidnapping children for his father's experiments. OK, maybe that's a big vague. Let's back up. John Lithgow plays Carter Nix, a respected psychologist that is taking time off from his practice to help raise his daughter while his wife Jenny (Lolita Davidovich) keeps working. There's something not quite right about Carter though. The attention he gives to his daughter borders on obsessive and when his "twin brother" suddenly appears outside of his car window, Cain reveals that the two have been working on a sinister plan fit for a mad genius. Their father, long-thought dead (also played by John Lithgow) is looking to collect children so that he can experiment the effects of abuse on their minds. He wants to kidnap children, traumatize them and study them afterward, hoping to create examples of multiple personality disorder and document what his "research" uncovers. That's a pretty crazy story, but what is really affecting Carter is Jenny's old flame Jack (Steven Bauer) has suddenly re-entering her life. Her marriage vows are looking a lot less appealing now that this hunk has bumped into her and with this added stress, it's enough to drive a man mad!While watching the movie, I was just confused. Is casting John Lithgow as multiple members of his family supposed to be done so that we think they're real people, or are we supposed to think they're hallucinations? If it was supposed to be a twist that he and his brother are in fact, the same person, why not cast other people in the role? There's nothing about their relationship that makes them being "twins" necessary, so why this choice? Most thrillers dealing with imaginary friends, little voices in people's heads telling them to go bananas or multiple personality disorders choose two different actors to play the roles in order to avoid suspicion. If it's not supposed to be a twist, why do they play it as a big revelation that he's a crazy person? There are some casting choices here and some revelations in the end of the film that support the idea that it's supposed to be a twist and others that say it isn't, making the movie very difficult to review without spoiling anything. Maybe that's just me though. Maybe I'm a dummy and I just read somewhere that this movie was about a multiple personalities and just didn't catch all of the red herrings, or maybe this movie was meant to be so obvious that it would throw people off. Even if that's the case, the movie directed very strangely. There are multiple scenes where characters are shown doing some pretty extreme things that would shock the people they know and love, but then they turn out to be dreams. Then the next scene turns out to be a flashback, followed by another dream. There's no way to determine what is what and who is sane in this movie so it just becomes confusing and annoying.If you watch the film, you will really question the behavior of some characters. The police are particularly ineffective in this film and jump to all sorts of crazy conclusions when it's convenient for a character to be captured, but when someone needs to escape or get away so that they can confront another character or make a dramatic entrance later in the film, the security becomes incredibly lax. There is a pretty cool escape sequence where Carter manages to sneak out of a building unnoticed, but even then he drops the ball by removing his shoes and just walking around barefoot. Yes he changed his clothes so no one would recognize him, but walking around without any protection for your toes? That's just a bad move. Was he concerned that the police would recognize his footprints, but not his face? There are some minor plot holes you can point out too, but it's not the little details that make this movie bad, it's the overall story, the way it's set up and particularly the casting. John Lithgow does a fine job, even when his role calls for some embarrassing stuff. Throughout the film, it just feels like something is wrong though. It feels like certain roles were chosen to be played by John Lithgow not because he suited the role, but because it would make for a "shocking reveal" later in the movie. It's not his fault he's in a mess of a film, it's the casting director's, and Brian De Palma's for letting him/her get away with it.I realize I'm being overwhelmingly negative about the movie, but it really isn't all that bad. It's just profoundly misguided and overall not anything special. I can't quite recommend it, though if you've seen it ahead of time and you want to really screw with your friends' minds, watch this one back-to-back with a movie where a character has multiple personalities and it's a genuine twist. Watch this one second and watch their brains deflate like a balloon out of confusion. It's never boring, that's something good to be said about it and there are some genuinely thrilling moments here too, but it's just nothing you should rush out to see or will remember very well once it's all over, except maybe for the last shot of the movie, which is particularly ridiculous. (On DVD, January 19, 2014)

Jenny, wife of eminent child psychologist Carter Nix, becomes increasingly concerned about her husband's seemingly obsessive concern over the upbringing of their daughter. Her affair with an old flame, however, causes her to neglect her motherly duties.But a spate of local kidnapings forces her to accept the possibility that he may be trying to recreate the twisted mind-control experiments of his discredited psychologist father.Baffling and even considering his CV, this has to be De Palmas most bonkers film, but my goodness, it's a wonderful bonkers movie.Referencing every thing from Hitchcock, to Lynch, to parental fears, Raising Cain is not a good place to start, if you want to seek out De Palma.If you are a veteran to his films though, and appreciate his obsession with Hitchcock, you will find so much to like in this movie.Lithgow is wonderful as the titular characters, and although he loses it slightly toward the end, the interrogation scene is wonderfully acted by Lithgow, and makes the film the gem that it is.The camera-work is what you would expect from the director, and the scene from the police station to the body found in the trunk, is expertly done, and looks seamless.It gets a little confusing every now and again, and it all feels a bit dated, but for De Palma fans, it's a real treat.