Brian de Palma was once a great director who could do magic with his keen sense of suspense that paid a heavy homage to the works of Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, and Sergei Eisenstein. However, he tried to sever himself from his patent themes of choice and tackled other genres. While he excelled with his crime drama THE UNTOUCHABLES, he failed miserably with THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES.
So by 1992 he decided (like most directors of a known style going through a bad patch) to go back to what he was known for. One problem, though. Assuming the role of screenwriter became his big misstep because as much as the idea works on paper, his dialog almost ruins the movie. It's the same thing that affected DRESSED TO KILL in which Nancy Allen was given some horrendous lines to say even when that film is a fantastic exercise in suspense and a correct reconstruction of a well-known story -- that of PSYCHO.
However, de Palma creates a masterful dream-like world not that different thematically from the worlds of Luis Bunuel and his bourgeois, caught in the middle of their own frenzied dreams which are harbingers of nightmares, waking up to find they may still be in the middle of something not quite real. The story opens up layers upon layers of mystique and mystery and reveals information only in fits and spurts, which leaves us in a state of wondering what the hell are we watching at times.
Indeed, it may take one more view to get the impenetrable mess that RAISING CAIN is, and this is due to the fact that so many of Carter's personalities come forth like an unseen cast operating only under John Lithgow's chameleon-like persona. In showing the two characters battling for the upper hand by placing Lithgow being a tree, for example -- a technique Peter Jackson would use for scenes in which Gollum and Smeagol shared their twisted, tragic banter about the wretched Ring in his LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS -- he has one of the best moments of duplicity ever seen on screen, and one that doesn't need split screens or special effects to be potent.
But interesting as well is how another character is introduced, also under the persona of Lithgow. Margo, a kind woman, is only described by Lithgow's own words as being one "who looks after the children." I find it interesting that for Carter to be set free he has to let this female personality come forth and lead him to sure escape. As to whether she will remain as a dominant personality when she appears in the final reel remains a mystery but like Bunuel films, it's there, unexplained, shown mainly for a shock tactic a la UN CHIEN ANDALOU, but in a less threatening way.
RAISING CAIN is a pretty slick movie that should be seen at least twice. There is so much happening with its plot, and so much interpretations that can be given to the dreams that blend in with the reality which in itself may be a dream that it may well be one of his better films, underrated because of the fracas of BONFIRE. It's intoxicating, and a Brian de Palma movie, this is it, hands-down. Every scene is a hoot to watch: it's as if the director had a huge bag of tricks that were part of his style and he had decided to let them all out in a flood of images and great sequences. And this is not something directors of a certain vision can say they do. I have to say I loved every homage and element thrown in. The dream within a dream sequence, Dr. Waldheim's (Frances Sternhagen) explanation that follows her throughout a winding set of hallways before having the camera zoom in on a victims horrified face, Carter's wife Jenny's (Lolita Davidovich) sudden awakening inside a car that is sinking into a swamp (another PSYCHO link) and the final showdown happening at several levels and in slow motion. If anyone can do high suspense today, it's de Palma.
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