Hide and Seek

A widower (Robert De Niro) moves to the country in an effort to help his daughter (Dakota Fanning) deal with the suicide of her mother (Amy Irving). Ari Schlossberg’s script follows a tired formula almost from the start, and director John Polson’s attempts to build suspense—having young Fanning take long pauses and read her lines in a monotone—only makes the movie drag. We see every twist coming from miles away, characters practically have “DOOMED” tattooed on their foreheads, and the movie doesn’t even follow its own logic. After the big “surprise” twist, it makes even less sense than before. The experience of watching it is mainly one of sadness at the schlocky spiral of De Niro’s career: first junk comedies like Analyze That and Meet the Parents, and now a cheesy slasher flick like this.