From the very moment it was first nominated for Best Picture I had my misgivings about Rain Man being crowned movie of the year. My reservations stemmed not just from its merits or demerits as the case may be, but from what I considered to be superior work among both named and unnamed films.

Though it faced such competition as The Accidental Tourist, Mississippi Burning and Working Girl with an easy sense of mastery, its co-nominee Dangerous Liaisons pleased me among so-called pictures of the year wannabes. In the same vein I was also desperately supportive of three non-nominated movies that have since remained personal favorites over and above the Oscar winner.

Minimized by being a sports comedy Bull Durham is a wonderful tale of struggle and devotion that initiated Kevin Costner's run on superstardom. Then there was David Cronenberg's horror movie, Dead Ringers, about twin gynecologists who gradually lose their minds and dissolve into a single identity. And there was Errol Morris's masterfully format stretching documentary The Thin Blue Line that literally contributed to freeing an innocent man wrongfully convicted of a crime he didn't commit.

Each of these films was well received within a niche audience and each of them remains a lasting tribute to original filmmaking. Only Bull Durham can be labeled a hit in having grossed some $50 million domestically but Dead Ringers and The Thin Blue Line were no less influential on their own scales and with regard to their own small audience share.

For its part Dead Ringers demonstrated the considerable talents of star Jeremy Irons that led to his acting Oscar the following year for Reversal of Fortune. Though the honor was, for many observers, the Academy's apology for overlooking his unnerving performance in Dead Ringers, it was no less a reward of merit that continues to remember Cronenberg's most mainstream horror film to date.

To documentarians The Thin Blue Line was a watershed moment. Not only was it the controversial centerpiece of a legal appeal, it played with the conventions of non-fiction movies to produce a highly suggestive and impressionistic film. More specifically, director Morris used reenactments, both true and false, to portray a point-of-view rather than to simply observe circumstances using the fly-on-the-wall style made popular by a previous generation of non-fiction filmmakers. The result of his decision, in addition to exploring the circumstantial layers of American jurisprudence, is a highly personal and remarkable movie that remains an inspiration today.

All of this reconsideration of Rain Man's Best Picture win is to simply say that while I had reservations in early 1989 about its possible claim to being picture of the year, very little of what I've seen, read, argued about or experienced since has changed my mind even one wit. I continue to regard Dangerous Liaisons as the best movie of the nominated choices for top honors with the earned caveat that Rain Man has a set of terrific performances though they hardly make for a Best Picture win.

Like many people, though, I will pause to watch any of a number of its scenes when I find it on cable TV. Yet I will also pause for scenes from Big, Die Hard and Young Guns, three other non-Oscar nominated films released in 1988 that further demonstrate my democratic movie-viewing practices and Rain Man's relative import since its release. The more exacting test of its greatness, then, is in seeing if the Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow scripted drama about an autistic man and his self-centered brother holds up with its alternative choices for picture of the year clearly stated.

In partial answer Rain Man does and doesn't. The showcase role of Raymond Babbitt, brilliantly realized by Dustin Hoffman, is its heart and moral center. The secondary, but no less important, role of the hotshot younger brother Charlie Babbitt is equally well realized by Tom Cruise who proved himself not just a pin-up star but an actor alongside one of Hollywood's reigning artists. Importantly this stand-up job is critical to any evaluation of the film since Charlie's personal journey is the dramatic ark of the film.

While it's easy to be amazed by Hoffman's many skills and adroitly observed autistic malapropisms, his role is utterly unchanging. From the first he's an idiot savant with unusual mathematical abilities but very little skill in situations of ordinary socialization. His stunning need for order, simplicity and regular routines is the source of much of the film's humor but it is equally a point of remembrance since Raymond remains the same person he was at the beginning of the film.

Not so for Charlie Babbitt, the huckster salesman and charming soul of emptied values and cynical purpose. Cruise faced his career's first true acting challenge that required him to stretch beyond the adolescent fantasies of Risky Business and Top Gun and, instead, show some ability at weaving a character worthy of two plus hours of on-screen consideration. That his performance as Hoffman's foil was ignored by the Academy demonstrates the skewed values of the viewing public, critics and lay people alike. But it's also significant since Charlie Babbitt is the lead role of the movie even if Hoffman won his second lead actor Oscar in the opposite part.

Playing brothers forced together by circumstances with their father's death, Charlie and Raymond learn of one another when Charlie discovers he's been cut out of his inheritance and that's he's got an older brother he never knew. Filled with injured pride and wonder because Raymond is the sole recipient of Babbitt family fortune, the ensuing road trip gives the brothers an opportunity to rediscover each other.

For Raymond this means an opportunity to reveal his protective quality as Charlie's "Rain Man" from early childhood. For Charlie it's a chance to live outside his carefully maintained and selfish world to accommodate the immovability of his brother's disability.

Filling out the cast is Charlie's girlfriend Susanna (Valeria Golino) who provides the sort of gentility and kindness to Raymond that's so totally lost on her lover as he first overcomes his family rage for a lost inheritance and learns to feel non-erotic love for someone else. Aside from accompanying the brothers on their road trip, though, Susanna is mere window dressing to a plot that doesn't much involve her except as an adult conscience further forcing Charlie to wake up and realize the wide appeal of a world outside his ego-driven pursuits.

For sure there are emotionally satisfying moments in Rain Man just as there are brilliant moments between Hoffman and Cruise that are rather intimately directed by Levinson. Yet it's not enough for a movie to concern itself with an emotionally affecting storyline about people learning the limits of themselves through the discovery of family relations. It's likewise not enough for a movie to masquerade as brilliant screen art when its component artists, Hoffman, Cruise and Levinson, are only asked to stretch as far as is necessary to create a critical and box office sensation.

And create a box office sensation they did with some $172 million in domestic grosses and an additional $240 million internationally. Framing this success alongside two other prominent films of 1988, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Coming to America each grossed less domestically with earnings of $154 and $128 million respectively, not to mention the overseas markets where their take was $195 and $160 million.

This is to say that despite my indifference to the overall movie with its predictable result, and in light of my celebration of its central performances, Rain Man enjoyed a groundswell of popular and critical support without a likable distraction or equivalent in 1988. Producer Mark Johnson saw his investment in a complex human drama pay huge dividends just as Hoffman's reputation as a singular movie actor was further cemented beneath his latest masterwork of screen performance.

Tom Cruise, that toothy industry of adventure movies, has been the lasting import of Rain Man since it's his rising start that's caught in transition just before ascending the pinnacle of celluloid stardom to command global audiences of unparalleled size. Little more should be taken from the Best Picture winner of 1988 save for the fact it was one of Cruise's first major risks outside his already established role of pop star.

In short, Rain Man is a pleasant enough film that includes plenty of gooey and occasionally affecting sentiments about disability and human frailty. Even so it's more memorable for showcasing who was involved with its production rather than for what it actually delivers on screen, minute-by-minute and scene-by-scene.