***This comment definitely contains spoilers!!!*** Robert de Niro's recent movie "Hide and Seek" is, as another IMDb commentator stated, a "watchable" movie. Although it is decently made, its failure to become a box office success was due to its script which was rather cliché. The plot line that the central character of the movie turned out to be the real villain is nothing new. Probably it was first used by Agatha Christie in her novel "Murder of Roger Ackroyd" approximately eighty years ago. Even with the further twist that this central character/villain himself probably did not remember the crimes due to memory suppression, the plot line is still nothing new. Rod Serling and others used this kind of plot line decades ago. (Some readers may recall a 1963 Twilight Zone episode "The New Exhibit" in which the central character played by Martin Balsam kept on killing and killing but did not remember any of his crimes due to his memory suppression. He blamed the murders on supernatural acts by his wax statues.) Because of this hackneyed plot, the so-called surprise ending of this movie was not much of a surprise. The only unexpected thing about the ending of the movie which is worth mentioning is the fact that the screenwriters steered the moviegoers to think that this movie was a horror movie in which an apparition named Charlie was behind all the horrible things occurring in the Calloway household. The screenwriters of the movie borrowed liberally from the Japanese movie "Dark Water" to make the movie look like a horror movie. For example, just like in the Japanese movie "Dark Water," 1) Calloway household consists of one parent and one child, 2) Charlie initially revealed himself only to the child and 3) Charlie seems to be associated with water, especially to the bathtub. At the beginning of "Hide and Seek," many fans of Asian horror movies and similar movies assumed this movie to be a horror movie, similar to "Dark Water." To the surprise of some of the moviegoers, the movie turned out to be a suspense movie in which none of the horrible events in the movie was supernatural. They were all the acts of the dual personality of the insane central character played by de Niro.
Although de Niro did an admirable job playing the mentally ill psychologist, his acting was not good enough to save this rather cliché script. "Hide and Seek" was merely watchable, but not very unique.
Although de Niro did an admirable job playing the mentally ill psychologist, his acting was not good enough to save this rather cliché script. "Hide and Seek" was merely watchable, but not very unique.