“Hide and Seek” (20th Century Fox)
“Hide and Seek” is a thrilling thriller. On that you can rely. But it also has a murky plot that doesn’t hold up when you think about it, after you have left the theater. Robert DeNiro and Dakota Fanning go all out to provide us with solid entertainment but their characters are inconsistent and the happenings can not be explained.
DeNiro plays David Calloway, a psychologist with a beautiful wife (Amy Irving) and a precocious daughter named Emily (Fanning). Shortly after the start of the film David’s wife commits suicide. In order to get his daughter away from this horror, David buys a house in upstate New York. It is in a rather secluded area but David finds they do have neighbors living next door.
One day Emily tells David she has made a new friend named Charlie. David marks this up to being an “imaginary’ friend since he has never seen or heard this new person. But Charlie is a meanie and soon sinister things begin to happen. When David confronts Emily she says, “Charlie did it!”
Incident piles up upon incident and by the end of the film things have gotten very bad indeed. That is when the “twist” of an ending occurs and it is a shocker. Not a plausible one, but a shocker just the same.
DeNiro and Fanning are excellent in this film. DeNiro is playing an “everyman” type of character and can’t rely on the drama of the piece, but rather has to create a mood through the normalcy of the person he is playing. Fanning on the other hand is playing a character who is on the edge of terror from beginning to end. She uses vacant stares and hesitant speech to create the image.
Elisabeth Shue and Famke Janssen have supporting roles in the movie but they only make a vague impression. Dylan Baker is also wasted as the local sheriff. Melissa Leo is much better used as the neighbor David meets.
The movie is rated R for profanity & violence.
The movie “hides” most of the key elements of the plot, but if it is thrills you “seek” then this is a good movie to see. Leave logic outside and just go in for some chills and thrills and a pair of good performances from DeNiro and Fanning.
I scored “Hide and Seek” a found 5 out of 10.
