Dustin Hoffman garnered all the honours in Barry Levinson's rites of
passage drama, playing the autistic idiot savant being abducted by his
cocky car-dealer brother Tom Cruise. Yet it's Cruise who provides the
backbone of the film, palpably developing into a more sensitive if not
quite decent human being. Levinson allows his actors to flow, applying
his skill at coaxing gentle humour and delicate emotion from seemingly
innocuous material. Not as outstanding as all the awards imply, but an
affecting slice of fraternal melodrama nonetheless.
