Hi, Mom! (1970)

67% of critics liked it
(9 reviews)
53% of users liked it
(2,884 ratings)

Brian De Palma takes on late 1960s media culture in his followup to Greetings (1968). Seeking a place in New York life one way or another, Vietnam vet John Rubin (Robert De Niro) moves into a Greenwich Village dive, with hopes of becoming a director for porn king Joe Banner (Allen Garfield). Rubin… More Brian De Palma takes on late 1960s media culture in his followup to Greetings (1968). Seeking a place in New York life one way or another, Vietnam vet John Rubin (Robert De Niro) moves into a Greenwich Village dive, with hopes of becoming a director for porn king Joe Banner (Allen Garfield). Rubin sells Banner on his idea to make "Peep Art" by filming the racy action in the building windows across from his apartment. He plans to seduce talky window denizen Judy (Jennifer Salt) to get the film he wants; but when that plan fails, John trades his camera for a TV and joins a radical theater troupe for their performance piece, "Be Black Baby." Inspired by the radicals, John decides to make his own violent political statement -- or does he just want to be on TV? Mixing long passages of the TV-framed "Be Black Baby" with John's misadventures in Manhattan, the film sends up political extremism, liberal guilt, and the Chicago 1968 protestors' mantra that "the whole world is watching," as it all becomes one big staged performance for the cameras. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 27 min.
Directed By: Brian DePalma
Written By: Brian DePalma, Charles Hirsch
Genres: Classics, Comedy

In Theaters: Jan 1, 1970 Wide
On DVD: Dec 7, 2004

Critic Reviews

Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Now considered valued mostly as a relic.
Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion
Brian De Palma's joke, in its manifold aspects, roasts the counterculture's naïveté regarding cinema as "truth 24 frames per second"
Emanuel Levy, EmanuelLevy.Com
Sort of a sequel to De Palma's Greetings: De Niro plays a Vietnam vet who attempts to pursue a "Peeping Tom" art career with a new kind of porno film, but instead get an acting job in a production about the black experience as interpreted by whites.
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
Wasn't quite as controversial as its X-rated predecessor, Greetings (1968), but it still has a bite, even today.
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com
comes across as one big joke
Eric Henderson, Slant Magazine
The most Hitchcockian riff that De Palma ever examined is the capacity for the human psyche to harbor intense, complicated divergence.

Read all 6 critic reviews

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

AJ V

This movie is more of a documentary about radical New York film and theatre groups in 1970. It's really uneven and all over the place, and the end doesn't make any sense. Overall, it's interesting, but not a good movie.
Lady D

My guess is it's a 'you'll get it or you won't' kind of movie. Personally I found it a pleasantly surprising quirky film and the title of course reveals itself toward the end. Some quite controversial issues rise and as regards to storytelling, this is not… More
My guess is it's a 'you'll get it or you won't' kind of movie. Personally I found it a pleasantly surprising quirky film and the title of course reveals itself toward the end. Some quite controversial issues rise and as regards to storytelling, this is not such a straight forward film in the usual sense, in fact in many ways it's quite arty.
Conner R

Continuing the hilarious scenario fro Greetings, this is an even better film with a lot more direction and better acting. Robert De Niro continues to dominate the screen as Jon Rubin, the suave peeping tom/porn film-maker. His sense of humor and deranged sincerity is like no other… More
Continuing the hilarious scenario fro Greetings, this is an even better film with a lot more direction and better acting. Robert De Niro continues to dominate the screen as Jon Rubin, the suave peeping tom/porn film-maker. His sense of humor and deranged sincerity is like no other actor. He tries to go professional after coming back from Vietnam, where he found himself at the end of the previous film. This has an extreme sense cultural relevance of the late 60s-early 70s, dealing with the hippie culture, the end of the civil rights movement, etc. Itâ??s just so full of life that you canâ??t help but admire Brian De Palma for shooting reality. While some might say itâ??s a black comedy, I feel that itâ??s just as much an accurate reflection of New York at the time.
Pierluigi P

Before turning into a suspense auteur, Brian DePalma directed this subversive little film, heavily inspired by the vanguardist french nouvelle vague. A sequel of "greetings" in which he let DeNiro run the show with amazingly funny results.
Stephen M

"Greetings" was good but the sequel "Hi, Mom!" is astonishing, easily the best of Brian De Palma's early comedies and still one of the greatest films he has made. It's overflowing with terrific ideas and is brilliantly shot and edited, retaining a… More
"Greetings" was good but the sequel "Hi, Mom!" is astonishing, easily the best of Brian De Palma's early comedies and still one of the greatest films he has made. It's overflowing with terrific ideas and is brilliantly shot and edited, retaining a vitality and an awesome power in spite of its often dated subject-matter. Robert De Niro reprises his role of Jon Rubin, a voyeuristic Vietnam vet who sets out to make a porno movie by surreptitiously filming the residents of a neighbouring apartment block, then joins an experimental theatre group and, finally, becomes an urban terrorist. The first part of the movie, with Allen Garfield reprising his role of a smut peddler from "Greetings", is hilarious, and one is completely unprepared for the shattering shift in tone which follows with the "Be Black, Baby" segment, in which a group of whites in blackface are terrorized by blacks in whiteface to help them understand the 'black experience' of living in America. This harrowing sequence alone would make "Hi, Mom!" a five-star film; everything else is just a bonus.
Adam M

DePalma never came closer to Godard, and DeNiro has never been funnier