Metacritic reviews

There've been few screen moments more moving this year than Cruise's initial reaction to his brother's almost superhuman math prowess. [16 Dec 1988]

Somehow, Hoffman makes all this hypnotically interesting, and, through impeccable timing, sometimes terribly funny--a sweet humor which never betrays Raymond's unalterable character. [16 Dec 1988]

Fortunately, the script by Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow isn't half bad, and both Barry Levinson's direction and the performances are agreeably restrained.

The story wanders, the plot twists seem contrived at times, and the emotions are never as intense as they might be. But it highlights yet another facet of Hoffman's talent: a gift for monochrome, of all things! And it has a heart as good as Raymond's own. [30 Dec 1988]

Only after the Hollywood hypnotism wears off is it apparent that Rain Man, fundamentally an artsy sentimentalization of "The Odd Couple," is somewhat less than the sum of its perfect parts.

In much the way that Raymond stays detached, the performance seems to exist outside the film but, instead of illuminating Rain Man, it upstages the work of everyone else involved. [16 Dec 1988, p.C12]

Rain Man's restraint is, finally, rather like Raymond's gabble. It discourages connections, keeping you out instead of drawing you in. [19 Dec 1998]

Hoffman blows costar Cruise right off the screen...Instead of playing off or with Hoffman (a greenhorn's smartest strategy), Cruise tends to play at him, flailing and swearing like a spoiled, grounded pilot in "Top Gun II."

Everything in this movie is fudged ever so humanistically, in a perfuctory, low-pressure way. And the picture has its effectiveness: people are crying at it. Of course they're crying at it - it's a piece of wet kitsch. [6 Feb 1989]

It's Hoffman's failure, though, that sinks the picture. He is working here with his usual meticulousness, but there's no relaxation in his performance, no sense that he has ever merged with his subject, that he has found Raymond's center and is simply acting out of it.