Hide And Seek review

What on earth is Robert de Niro doing? This is the only logical question after watching the truly terrible Hide and Seek, a film which would barely merit a straight-to-video release were it not for the great man's presence. That an actor who stunned the world in the space of a few years in films such as The Godfather, Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter and Raging Bull should now be reduced to second rate fodder such as the recent Showtime, Fifteen Minutes and the execrable Godsend suggests that he is either now paying his dues for the earlier luck in his career, or that he has simply lost the ability to tell a good script from a bad one.

While the unfortunate few who saw Godsend might have rated it the lowest point in his career, De Niro plumbs even greater depths in this by-the-number thriller, directed by Swimfan helmer John Polson and written by first-time scribe Ari Schlossberg. De Niro plays David Calloway, a married psychologist whose wife (a majestic-looking Amy Irving) commits suicide in the bath in their New York home in the first reel of the film. Their daughter Emily (Dakota Fanning) is traumatized, and instead of turning to family or friends for help, Calloway decides to go upstate and rent a spooky cottage, conveniently located between a dark wood and a lake.

Needless to say, the locals are all noticeably weird, and while welcoming, take an unusual interest in young Emily. There's a shifty sheriff, a positively evil-looking estate agent and a couple next door who constantly argue. Soon Emily is behaving oddly: during one of her many games of hide and seek she meets a new imaginary friend, Charlie. Charlie tells her to do some strange things for a kid, including tearing the eyes out of her friends' dolls, appearing at dinner dressed as a witch, and daubing the bathroom with bloody murals. Calloway spends his time wooing local mother Elisabeth Shue, and listening to classical music on his headphones, until one dark and stormy night events come to a belated and not-very-terrifying climax.

Director John Polson rips off from many horrors of the late 70s, most notably The Shining. At one point one of the characters even tries to break down a door with an axe just as Nicholson did in his famous %u2018Here's Johnny' sequence. In fact, there's more enjoyment to be had in spotting these references than there is in trying to figure out where the film is going to go. Simple things that any of the character should have done are ignored in favour of preposterous plot twists, which leads to a finale that is all-too-familiar and simply risible.

In an attempt to bolster the film's dramatic potential (see The Sixth Sense), American distributors delayed the delivery of the film's final reel to cinemas until the first day of exhibition. But the only thing that audiences will find shocking about Hide and Seek is seeing an iconic actor in material that is way beneath him.

Paul Hurley