![]() In fact, his direction displays a real confidence for getting the shot that works for the scene rather than the shot that works for the actor. He doesn't fall into the common traps of actors-turned-directors by letting himself go too big in any given scene or making himself front and center for every shot. The acting is uniformly good in Hide in Plain Sight, showing Caan was as good a director of actors as he was one himself and that's saying a lot. No one will help him find his children and Hacklin eventually takes matters into his own hands. Hacklin hires a lawyer (Danny Aiello) and even gets inside the halls of Congress but to no avail. Now Thomas won't be able to see his kids at all or perhaps never again. The only problem is Jack is doing some shady work for the mob and when he gets caught, he marries Ruthie so she can't testify against him and goes into the Witness Protection Program. Divorced and without custody of his children, Hacklin spends odd nights baby-sitting his own children while his ex-wife, Ruthie (Barbra Rae), and her new boyfriend Jack (Robert Viharo), go out on elaborate dinner dates. The story of Hide in Plain Sight is based on the real life events surrounding the life of the blue-collar worker played by Caan, Thomas Hacklin. It may be of little solace to Caan at this point but Hide in Plain Sight is gaining a reputation it inexplicably missed out on upon its release. Vincent Canby liked it, saying Caan made a lot of great choices but other critics, like Roger Ebert, complained it was uneven and slow. ![]() It was an endlessly frustrating experience for Caan and on top of that, the reviews were mixed. I said, 'I don't want music, I'm shooting a cinema verite kind of thing, so why the hell is the Fifth Symphony coming out of the candy store, all of a sudden?'" What are you telling me?' I mean, the guy put music into my film when I wasn't there. He added, "Plus I had to listen to speeches like, 'I've been watching rushes for 40 years, and you have to do so and so.' I'd say, 'everything's changed in 40 years. There were no sharks," Caan said in an interview in 1981 while promoting his starring role in Michael Mann's Thief. "I spent two years of my life doing it, and some jerk at United Artists -who's been fired, thank God - said, 'This picture isn't commercial.' Well, it wasn't. Hide in Plain Sight displays his talents on the other side of the camera and it's a shame Caan never directed again. Surprisingly, Caan does have a rather delicate touch as a director. Just a year later, Caan made his own movie about divorced parents and child custody that managed to work in the mob and a shootout near the end. Kramer became a smash hit (the top box-office draw of the year, in fact) dealing with divorced parents and child custody. One year prior to the release of James Caan's directorial debut of Hide in Plain Sight, Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) would look like starring and directed by James Caan, they'd have their answer with Hide in Plain Sight (1980). If someone had to imagine what Kramer vs.
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