Collateral (2004)

This entry is probably less about the above film than about its star, Tom Cruise -- "the biggest movie star in the world" (trademark!).  I was watching one of this week's Sky premieres, "Rock of Ages" (2012) and I really began to wonder about Cruise's appeal, popularity, and power. I didn't particularly care for the film since the pop-rock score all sounded much of a muchness to my tin ear. I far preferred the music in another of the premieres, "Joyful Noise", since Gospel is the more emotive sound, but the film itself was nothing very special, despite stellar turns from both Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah. Cruise acquitted himself reasonably as the troubled, heavy metal rock god in the former movie, but I really didn't give a toss for his character. Oddly enough the best thing in the film was probably the abrasive Russell Brand, who normally gets up my nose, especially in his unexpected love scenes with Alec Baldwin's laidback club owner.

However getting back to Mr. Cruise, I know for a fact that I have seen all of his films up to "Rock of Ages", since that's what I do! However despite my mania for collecting any film that appeals to me, I have only chosen to add two of his movies to my collection on the strength of his performance and in both of them "Magnolia" (1999) and "Tropic Thunder" (2008) he took basically OTT cameo roles as part of an ensemble cast. I admit to owning "Legend" (1985) and "Interview with the Vampire" (1994) as entertaining films, despite Cruise, and to also having "Rain Man" (1988) and "A Few Good Men" (1992) as freebie acquisitions. But if I had to explain why most of his films since his break-out performance in his spanking white undies in 1983's "Risky Business" have left me cold, I would have to say that there is something about the man that just puts me off. He is certainly an adequate actor who is not risk-avoidant and who welcomes roles that challenge his abilities, but he comes across as one who believes that he is infallible. How else to explain the recent entry of a mini-Tom playing the 6' 4" Jack Reacher? Apparently he is extremely diligent and approachable on set, but something about him just doesn't feel real, and it probably has a little to do with his scientologist beliefs. He seems to expect success as his due, rather than something that he has achieved through a genuine or unique talent and nearly all of his roles are overladen with cockiness.

To test my feelings about him, I decide to re-watch the above movie which happened to be playing this week. In it he plays a cold-blooded, silver fox hitman called Vincent, who effectively hijacks cab-driver Jamie Foxx's taxi, for a night of scheduled killings. Foxx's Max daydreams about someday running his own high-class limo service and is initially intimidated by the vicious gunsel in the back seat, but gradually learns the meaning of courage. The pair play well against each and the film holds one's attention, but it's really not a flick I would wish to own or re-watch a third time. Director Michael Mann does a top rate job of portraying the dark side of Los Angeles by night and uses the musical  underpinnings effectively. However I think he rather over-eggs the pudding, possibly encouraged to do so by his demanding leading man. The movie might have been sharper and leaner with fewer adoring shots of Cruise doing his thing. I also think it would have had a far more effective ending if Mann's camera had gradually drawn away from the now dead Vincent, rather than making us watch the newly heroic Max walking hand in hand into the sunlight with potential squeeze Jada Pinkett Smith.

The film's supporting cast is interesting and includes Mark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem amongst others, but there's no question about whom we are meant to be looking at; Foxx is good, but he is definitely the second lead here. Incidentally Jason Statham has a blink-and-you-might-miss-him role in the opening shot, but no doubt he relished this opportunity to believe that he was now a Hollywood player. Mind you, his is another career that mystifies me, but that's another story for another day.

Valkyrie (2008)

I wonder how many people I will upset if I admit that I have never really liked any film in which Tom Cruise starred. This is not to say that some of them haven't been watchable (if disposable) or that his cameos in both "Magnolia" and "Tropic Thunder" weren't good fun. I also seem to remember that I was vaguely positive quite recently about "Interview with the Vampire". My reaction has little to do with his "religious" beliefs or his personal life, but with the smiling, cocky persona that he so often inhabits. He comes across as the little boy who believes he can do no wrong. His character is awfully "samey" in so many of his movies -- whether he is conquering impossible missions or aliens.

This film which he also produced may well be of some interest to history buffs, but trying to pass Cruise off as the aristocratic Claus von Stauffenberg, one of the driving forces behind one of many plots to kill Hitler, just doesn't work for me. Director Brian Singer and his "Usual Suspects" screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie have turned out a suspense movie without suspense. It's not just that most people over the age of 25 (or am I pitching that too low?) know that Hitler was not removed by any conspirators and that his eventual death was by suicide, it's a question of holding an audience's interest for the best part of two hours where the outcome is well-known. With its surfeit of named characters, this draggy movie -- however faithful it may or may not be to history -- is largely boring, and I soon tired of Mr. Cruise strutting about in his eyepatch, polished boots, and apparently amputated hand.

While his character mouths the politically correct platitudes about why Hitler must go, it seems to me that his motivation stemmed largely from the war injuries which had ended his military career and from the fact that he could clearly see that the war would soon be lost. By the early removal of Hitler, he would have been securing his own future, but not to prove -- as at least one other character voiced -- that not all Germans were uncaring brutes! When he and his cronies attempt to put their plans into action without definite confirmation that Hitler is actually dead, von Stauffenberg keeps exclaiming that he must be, since he himself saw the bunker exploding. Each time he says this, Cruise sounds more and more like a petualant schoolboy.

It didn't bother me particularly that Cruise was the only American-sounding German in this film, since one accepts the movie-making convention of actors speaking with their own accents. In fact he was just about the only American-speaker in the cast. His lovely wife was played by "Black Book's" Clarice van Houten, who unfortunately was given very little to do. It was the largely English cast of co-conspirators that saved this movie from being totally unwatchable. This supporting cast led by Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp, and even Kenneth Branagh in his relatively brief turn were uniformly believable and could have given Cruise a few pointers on more subtle screen acting.