Hide and Seek

Don't be fooled by the trailer which makes Hide and Seek look like a worthy companion to the likes of The Sixth Sense, for this film represents nothing more than a new nadir in the continuing decline of the once fearsome Robert De Niro. How this once infallible actor went from one of the most transfixing screen presences in the world to someone who'll pimp himself out to the highest bidder is one of life's great mysteries.

Hide and Seek opens in New York where society couple Alison (Amy Irving) and David Callaway (De Niro) are undergoing serious marriage problems. After something terrible happens to his wife, David takes the couple's only daughter, Emily (Dakota Fanning) and relocates upstate where they take a holiday home in a sleepy seasonal town. Understandably disturbed by what she has witnessed, the youngster has retreated into herself, relying more and more on 'Charlie', an apparently imaginary friend. Since he's a well-renowned psychologist, David sees his daughter's malaise as being somewhat inevitable after the trauma she's suffered. But when unexplainable things start happening and his daughter's reliance on Charlie becomes more pronounced, David starts to get worried...

Promising far more than it delivers, Hide and Seek is one of those resolutely predictable thrillers, which doesn't attempt to do anything interesting with its characters or its initially engaging premise. Responsible for that crime against good taste Swimfan, director John Polson riffs off a pantheon of all too familiar sources, with little imagination or success. Quite aside from the fact that it is utterly dependent on a ridiculous twist, the most unfortunate thing about Hide and Seek is that everyone involved seems to be giving it a lot more respect than it deserves. Hope the cheque was worth your dignity, Bob.