Hide and Seek

by Bill Henry on Jan.28, 2005, under Bill Henry's Movie Reviews

Hide and Seek
Directed by John Polson
Seeking out dumbheads nationwide beginning 1/28/2005
1 *
One wonders if the producers filled out a modern horror movie checklist before beginning Hide and Seek. We have got a lame, predictable script that will echo better movies and provide an hour-plus tease followed by a twist ending. Check. Brain dead director with enough of a resume to show that he knows which end of the camera to point at the actors, but not smart enough to know the script is junk nor accomplished enough to cost us real money. Secured the services of John Polson (Swimfan); check. Got a creepy-looking little kid. We can just stick a wig and make-up on Dakota Fanning; check. Got a star on board who does not seem to care how he debases his talent; cue Robert De Niro.
It is not that I think this is beneath Robert De Niro, one of the greatest actors of all time content to allow his recent filmography to be cluttered by the likes of Godsend, Analyze That, and Showtime. Hide and Seek is not beneath De Niro; it is beneath Dakota Fanningâ€¦ and she acted in I Am Sam.
How did you celebrate New Yearâ€™s Eve? I went out to dinner with some friends. Following a night out with the wife, New York City shrink David Callaway (De Niro) awoke at 2:06 a.m. to find wifey Amy Irving in a candlelit bathtub filled with water and five quarts of her blood. Their only child Emily (Fanning) picks that moment to see what is up. Rather than take advantage of his newly single status with his protÃ©gÃ©, Famke Janssen, David decides to take his traumatized daughter to a mostly deserted upstate town where presumably, they can rattle around in the big old house while Fanningâ€™s make-up get creepier and creepier looking (cue dimwit director for some overhead road trip shots cribbed from the beginning of The Shiningâ€”the echoing surprise killing of Scatman Crothers, little kid escaping from the maniac takes, and the â€œHereâ€™s Johnnyâ€ rip-off shots are still to come). Once settled in a town where 10-year-olds do not go to school, and introduced to the red herrings (oops, supporting cast), Dakota is ready to meet her invisible friend Charlie. The whole who is Charlie question will take up the remainder of the movie. And the trouble with Charlie is that it is not a particularly interesting question.
A terrific aspect of The Sixth Sense is that once you know the secret all the plot points that came before still make perfect sense (I just thought the wife was being a bitch). When the secret of Hide and Seek is finally uncovered, the other charactersâ€™ actions seem either too co-operative or counter-productive. The movie only works if you are as stupid as the idiot that wrote it (Ari Schlossberg, take a bowâ€”screenwriters always whine that reviewers never give them credit).
And as if your intelligence has not been insulted enough, this past week, the publicity folk at 20th Century Fox announced that to safeguard the secret behind Hide and Seek, the final reel would be shipped separately from the rest of the movie with special security. It looks like the brain trust at Fox was really burning the midnight oil on that stratagem. And people like me wonder why the movies are so stupid.
–Bill Henry