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The Complete Works Ep. 116: Tom Cruise – RAIN MAN (1988)

·29 min·2 clips

Three weeks into filming, Dustin Hoffman told the director to find a replacement, calling it "the worst work of my life."

1. The Complete Works Ep. 116 covers Rain Man (1988), in which Tom Cruise plays Charlie, a yuppie who discovers his late father left a $3 million trust to an autistic brother he never knew existed. 2. Host Doug Hess, who is working through Tom Cruise's filmography for FilmBook, focuses on Cruise as Charlie and Dustin Hoffman as Raymond. 3. Hess's thesis is that his view of the film shifted from roughly a "four" on first viewing in 1988 to "a solid eight" out of 10 on rewatch, driven largely by Hoffman's performance. 4. He argues that Raymond "plays it straight down the middle" and is the film's constant, while Charlie, who inherits only a 1949 Buick Roadmaster, shifts from selfish to accepting. 5. He points to the roadside diner scene, where Raymond insists the maple syrup be on the table before the pancakes arrive, as an example of Raymond's routines frustrating Charlie. 6. He also cites the Las Vegas card-counting sequence, where Charlie uses Raymond to make money and begins to see how insensitive he has been. 7. Hess compares the film to Tootsie, Forrest Gump, A Beautiful Mind (2001), and The Theory of Everything (2014), and says Hoffman rather than Cruise "steals the show." 8. He lists the numbers: released December 16, 1988, a $25 million budget, a $7 million-plus opening weekend, a $354 million worldwide gross, and four Oscars out of several additional nominations. 9. His trivia includes Hoffman telling the director three weeks in that this was "the worst work of my life," Hoffman and Cruise nicknaming the film "Two Suckermans in a Car," and Nicholson, De Niro, and Gibson turning down Raymond. 10. Suited to Tom Cruise completists and fans of Hoffman's acting.

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