March 4, 2022
Ever have one of those situations where you run into someone you haven’t seen for a number of years and you have the moment where you realize how old their kids are and you think “that can’t be possible”? The last time you saw them their kids were toddlers and now they are graduating from high school and you think, “How the heck did that happen?” Then you realize how old your kids are now, maybe how old you are now (especially if you have a milestone birthday this year like a certain movie blogger you are reading right now), and realize that you only age your own kids in your mind and not other people’s kids. Because after all, it’s not complicated. It’s just…..math.
I was thinking about this experience recently when I started doing some research for this week’s post. You see, when it comes to acting legends, I have this dichotomy of feelings about some of the best. When I began watching movies when I was young and I was exposed to Hollywood legends, it was at the tail end of their career. For instance, I first saw Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn in On Golden Pond, when they were already in their 70s. That’s how I got to know them, so when I later watched some of their older iconic films, when they were in their prime, it felt like watching history, and very different from just watching a film. But for actors who burst onto the scene when I first started watching movies, especially if they have continued their successful run as I got older, I have no reference point of how old they have gotten. Well, other than my own age, which I try not to think about.
Look at Tom Cruise. After seeing his early films when I was in grade school, he’s still making movies today. Still running around, dodging terrorists, killing bad guys and saving the world. He’s performing his own stunts, looks to be in excellent shape and living a good life, right? Hmmm….he’s probably getting close to 50 soon, right? Nope. In another one of those “Wanna feel old moments?” Mr. Cruise will turn 60 this year. That’s right – 60. Can’t possibly be true, right? Well, I’m sure he wasn’t dancing around his living room in Risky Business when he was 10, and that movie is almost 40 years old, so yeah, 60 is about right. After all, it’s just….math.
OK, so why are we talking about Cruise this week? Well, I previously had this one teed up for last November ahead of the premiere of Top Gun: Maverick, but alas, that film suffered another pandemic-induced delay and will now debut Memorial Day weekend. This was also supposed to be the Year of Cruise with the release of Mission Impossible 7 later this year, but that one was pushed back to Summer of 2023. That’s ok, we still have Maverick flying into theaters this Summer. And having seen the trailer again when I saw The Godfather this week (a phenomenal experience to see that movie on the big screen – Wow!), I am very excited for Top Gun: Maverick to be released. With a Cruise resurgence expected in a few months, I decided to take this opportunity to look back at a truly incredible career over the last forty years including some bold choices, some curious choices, and some phenomenal performances. I’m going to rank my ten favorite Cruise movies, but first we’re going to cover two special categories.
Playing The Sidekick To An Acting Legend – The Color of Money (1986) and Rain Main (1988)
As I was ranking my favorite Cruise movies, I struggled with what to do with a few choices. There were two pictures that I absolutely loved, but they didn’t feel like “Tom Cruise” movies and that’s because he’s playing Robin to Batman alongside two incredible actors. So, I’m putting these in a special category.
I always knew about The Color of Money after it came out – it was hard to miss, especially with the star power of Paul Newman and Cruise in a movie directed by Martin Scorsese. Now, growing up, I never really saw any of Scorsese’s pictures and as I delved into his filmography over the years, this one always eluded me. Not for any particular reason. I just never got around to watching it. The Color of Money is the sequel to 1961’s The Hustler, in which Newman starred as pool hustler “Fast Eddie” Felson, learning the ropes and trying to take down the legendary Minnesota Fats, played by Jackie Gleason. The sequel finds Newman playing the veteran hustler taking the young hot shot played by Cruise under his wing. Newman won his long overdue Oscar for his role in the film and he is outstanding, as he was throughout his entire career. Side note: It’s crazy that he didn’t win for The Verdict in 1982, an incredible movie. But the other nominees were Ben Kingsley (who won for Gandhi), Dustin Hoffman, Jack Lemmon, and Peter O’Toole. Wow – what a stacked lineup.
So, after watching The Hustler, I finally got around to watching The Color of Money recently and it is a brilliant movie. Scorsese does an incredible job of bringing the tension and griminess of the life of a pool hustler to the screen, including trademark shots of the camera moving around the pool table to capture the ups and downs of our characters winning and losing matches. The iconic scene from the movie is probably where Cruise is dancing around the table (to Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London) casually sinking every shot. Along with Cruise’s other film from 1986 (a little movie called Top Gun), it was a demonstration to every audience member that this guy is for real. Watch this scene not only for Cruise’s star power wattage, but for the beautiful way Scorsese captures the scene on camera.
Two years later, Cruise would play alongside another iconic actor in the story of two brothers getting to know each other following the death of their father. Rain Man is best known for the superb performance by Dustin Hoffman, which won him his second Oscar, and for winning Best Picture. And yes, Hoffman is outstanding, playing a role that was considered very challenging at the time. But, the more I’ve seen this movie over the years, I’ve come to admire Cruise’s performance even more. He has to play the asshole brother, sometimes with an evilness that is hard to picture a character demonstrating. He has to let Hoffman’s character be front and center, but also be strong enough to not get overshadowed by Hoffman’s performance, along with delivering scenes with a sense of intensity, comedy or tenderness. Hoffman’s character barely changes during the course of the brothers’ journey from Ohio to California. Cruise’s character, on the other hand, evolves and grows as a person throughout the film, demonstrating a talent from the actor, which we would see a few other times in his career.
The Year Of Risky Choices – Magnolia (1999) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
After fifteen years of action movies, romantic comedies, and adult dramas, Cruise made two films in 1999 that I think were some of the boldest choices we’ve ever seen an actor make. Once again, I love both of these pictures, and couldn’t figure out where to rank them because they are so unique compared to the rest of his filmography. So, they get the special category treatment here.
I covered my thoughts on Magnolia in my breakdown of the career of Paul Thomas Anderson here, so I’ll be brief in my thoughts this week. Suffice it to say that with a wide tapestry of stories and characters throughout Anderson’s three-hour epic, this is the definition of an ensemble movie. In rewatching the film recently, it hit me that Cruise probably had the highest degree of difficulty of anyone in Magnolia. This guy was an A-list Hollywood superstar at the time and he took on the role of a motivational speaker whose entire curriculum (titled Seduce and Destroy) is based on misogyny and treating women like objects, instead of people. Cruise met Anderson on the set of our next movie, shortly after he saw a screening of Boogie Nights. He liked it so much that he asked Anderson if they could work together on a future project. Anderson wrote the character of Frank T.J. Mackey, who is probably the most unlikeable role that Cruise has ever played (well, maybe not as bad as the contract killer he played in the excellent Collateral). Mackey is called away from one of his seminars to face his strained relationship with his father (Jason Robards, in his final role), who is on his deathbed. Their one scene together was so powerful that Phillip Seymour Hoffman (playing the dad’s nurse and visible in the background) had a genuine emotional reaction to Cruise’s improvising the scene watching his father die. Truly powerful stuff.
I’ll try to be brief in my coverage of Cruise’s other 1999 movie, but in reality, I could probably write over 10,000 words about Eyes Wide Shut, the final film from legendary director Stanley Kubrick. A lot of times I may offer a disclaimer about my love for a movie with the caveat that it may not be for everyone – never has that been truer than with this film. Kubrick took over a year to make this movie in London, and died before the editing was complete. It was released a few months later to a very divisive reaction.
Eyes Wide Shut tells the story of Bill and Alice, a couple living in New York City with their young daughter. When Bill hears about a secret party where guests need a costume and password for entry, he cons his way in, and things start to spiral downward from there. The party scene (and the explicitness of the guests’ “activities”) garnered a lot of attention when the film was released, mostly because Kubrick had been fighting over suggested cuts to keep the picture rated R. But that scene (as f*cked up as it is) is only part of the story. The film is an examination of a marriage in crisis, with themes of love, trust, infidelity, class, and power.
The craziest thing about Eyes Wide Shut is that the couple in question was played by Cruise and his wife at the time, Nicole Kidman. Kubrick reportedly drove the couple crazy throughout the fifteen month shoot, which led to even higher tension in a marriage that was already fragile. Cruise and Kidman would divorce less than two years after the film’s release. This movie is certainly not for everyone. I find it to be a fascinating examination of a couple’s relationship, albeit with some absolutely batshit crazy sequences. It’s also the kind of film (much like a lot of Kubrick’s pictures) that has been subject to much examination. Go searching on YouTube for the meaning of Eyes Wide Shut and you’ll find some wild theories about the true meaning of the movie.
A few times throughout my blog posts, I’ve been critical of Cruise’s career choices, especially when I’ve written about my admiration for actors taking risks in their career. I’ve noted that after Magnolia and Eyes Wide Shut in 1999, Cruise was primarily playing the same character – the action star saving the world. I somehow forgot he starred in a movie where he sang Wanted Dead or Alive and Pour Some Sugar on Me. Yes, you read that right. You can go back and read it again. I’ll wait.
Believe it or not, in 2012 Cruise joined an ensemble cast in Rock of Ages, a film adaptation of the Broadway “jukebox musical” that celebrated the 1980s music scene. Now, on the one hand, I could see how this story might work on a Broadway stage with a bunch of unknown actors singing and dancing to the best of the 80s, but I couldn’t seriously take Cruise, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Paul Giamatti, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Bryan Cranston doing this on screen. I mean, Rock of Ages is laughably bad. There are only two ways I could see enjoying this movie. Remember those late-night college parties where you’d come back to the dorm after a few too many beverages and you’d put on a really bad movie and mock it while you emptied the contents of your fridge into the wee hours of the morning? That’s one way. The second would be in a quiet living room with Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban where we can hear Keith explain the accuracy of Cruise’s prowess as a rock star, and listen to Nicole give us a psychological breakdown of why Cruise might have thought this role was a good idea. Ok, maybe that’s too mean. I kid because I care. Moving right along….
OK, now that we’ve handed out a few special category awards, let’s dive into my top 10 Tom Cruise movies.
10. Vanilla Sky (2001)
On the one hand, this could be considered a bold role (especially once you see the end of the story come out of nowhere to break your brain), but at the heart of Vanilla Sky is a love story, and Cruise has demonstrated he can be successful in this genre before. Cameron Crowe directed this remake of a Spanish film from a few years earlier that is the story of a man imprisoned for murder who can’t remember the events in question. Cruise plays the main character and is also caught in a love triangle between Cameron Diaz and Penelope Cruz, who reprised the role she played in the original. I previously wrote about Vanilla Sky in my coverage of the best films of 2001, in which I noted that this movie features some winning performances from Cruise and Cruz, as well as one of my favorite soundtracks in recent memory. Cameron Crowe showed once before that he could get a fantastic performance out of Cruise, but we’ll get to that film a little later on the list. Buyer beware: if you decide to check this one out, prepare yourself for a batshit crazy ending, but I still like it.
9. Risky Business (1983)
Sometimes you just gotta say “What the fuck?” Has any quote ever better defined the life of a high school student whose parents have gone out of town? Long before Ferris Bueller showed how much trouble a teenager could get into, we met Joel Goodson, played by Cruise. Joel is your typical straight-laced high school student, with a few friends, aiming to get into Princeton with his good grades and extracurricular activities (including the Future Enterprisers club!). When Joel’s parents go out of town, he decides to spread his wings a little bit (primarily from the goading by his best friend Miles) and have some fun. Sprinkle in a visit from a call girl, a stolen decorative egg, a wild ride in his father’s Porsche, an interaction with “Guido the killer pimp”, and a party for the ages, and you have a winning 1980s comedy. While Cruise had a few minor roles before Risky Business, this is the movie that put him on the map with a broader audience. Not only was the excellent combination of humor and cringe-inducing fuck-ups by our hero part of the success, but Cruise’s winning smile and iconic dance to Old Time Rock ‘N Roll showed that he could appeal to people who wanted to be like him, and people who wanted to be with him.
8. The Firm (1993)
With the seemingly endless creation of new streaming services, the battle for content is fast and fierce. There is a relentless need by these companies to feed the beast by constantly bringing new movies or television series to their audiences. Oh yeah, there are still films for theaters too, so we are frequently seeing books snatched up for adaptation based on an idea from an author, let alone a completed piece of work. Not to mention endless reboots of previously told movies or television series, emphasizing a phrase I often read from a television critic, “What is dead may never die.” Apparently that is from Game of Thrones (not in my television wheelhouse). Anyway, the film adaptation of best-selling novels was not innovative in the mid-1990s. It has been done for decades in Hollywood and some of the big ones (Gone with the Wind, The Godfather, Jaws) and smaller ones that turned out wonderful (Ordinary People, Kramer vs. Kramer) have been big hits with audiences and critics. With all of that said, the adaptation of John Grisham’s The Firm was (make no mistake about it) a BIG DEAL.
Grisham was a feel-good story. Former attorney, who took a shot at writing, and achieved mammoth success with The Firm, his second novel, which was released in 1991. His first, A Time to Die, was adapted into a fantastic film in 1996 and solidified Matthew McConaughey as a bona fide leading man. His third novel, The Pelican Brief was also adapted into a 1993 film with Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington. You want to find a hotter author producing content in the early 1990s? Yeah, pretty tough to find one whose material can command stars of this caliber.
The Firm was the best-selling novel of 1991 and seemed like a no-brainer to be made into a film. Oscar-winning director Sydney Pollack jumped on board to make the movie and there was only one choice to play Mitch McDeere, an attorney caught in the middle of a dirty law firm that he joins after graduating from law school – the biggest star of the last decade. Alongside Cruise, The Firm features a stacked cast of Hollywood stars (Gene Hackman, Holly Hunter, Ed Harris, Hal Holbrook – the list goes on and on), and is a riveting legal action thriller. I recently watched this one for the first time in many years and found that it holds up very well (even if it is a little too long) for a movie made almost thirty years ago. There is equal parts drama, suspense and action, with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing. This is also a milestone in the Tom Cruise filmography – this is an unverified fact, but I believe this is the first time we see extensive running from our leading man, while he is being chased by the evil dudes trying to kill him. And Cruise running is peak cinema and is featured prominently in our next two picks.
7. Minority Report (2002)
When I covered the career of Steven Spielberg late last year, I wrote about this excellent collaboration between one of the great directors and Hollywood stars of our time. They would team up again a few years later for War of the Worlds, a somewhat disappointing picture to me. But Minority Report shows the best of each of their abilities. Spielberg, as he has shown so many times before, brings a realism of the future to life on the big screen, in this story of a wrongly-accused man running from the authorities while trying to prove his innocence. Kind of like The Fugitive with a twist – a big one. In the future, crime can be predicted by clairvoyant “pre-cogs,” alerting authorities to stop the crime before it occurs. Cruise is part of the “pre-crime” unit, dealing with guilt from his son’s disappearance, and abusing drugs to cope with that grief. But when he is spotted by the pre-cogs committing a murder in the future, the tables are turned and he is on the run like a common criminal. Minority Report explores themes of fate vs. free will, government oversight vs. personal privacy, and the dangers of technology all wrapped up into an action thriller. Cruise is fantastic in the role, demonstrating a good balance between action star and a broken father, dealing with devastating grief.
6. Mission: Impossible (1996)
More than twenty-five years after we first met Cruise as IMF agent Ethan Hunt, the franchise is still going strong, with a seventh installment planned for 2023 and an eighth (and rumored final) one lined up for 2024. I had a little debate about what to do with the Mission movies for purposes of this top ten, and decided to include the first installment, directed by the legendary Brian De Palma, into my rankings as the original is still my favorite. The series has had its ups and downs but is in a good place now. The second film was a big step down, while the third one got better (helped by director J.J. Abrams and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as an outstanding villain) before we transitioned to the next phase. The last three films have each gotten increasingly better, especially with the action sequences and stunt routines, mostly done by Cruise himself. Now, there is some camera trickery involved here and there, but Cruise is really taking insane risks in performing these stunts. I give a lot of credit to the recent success to director Christopher McQuarrie, who directed the fifth and sixth installments and is also tapped for the next two. He seems to have found a good rhythm with Cruise, mixing in a perfect blend of action, twists, double-crosses, and humor to make these movies a fun ride. When I recently watched 2018’s Mission: Impossible – Fallout, I thought to myself that these might be better than the Bond movies right now. But, let’s see how they move on from Daniel Craig before we settle on a winner.
The first film in the series, based on the 1960s television series, features Cruise leading a team of agents to recover a list of the identities of members of their agency. Every one of these films features some big item to be recovered (a list, a bomb, deadly poison, etc.) It never really matters what they are looking for. Hitchcock called it the MacGuffin – something that just helped the plot move along. Think of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction as a perfect example – it didn’t matter what was in the briefcase, only that it became important to the characters’ motivations. When a mission at the beginning of the movie goes sideways (RIP Emilio Estevez’s character), Hunt realizes he might be on his own and has to retrieve the list himself. The film takes us through many twists and turns, and sets the precedent for iconic sequences we would see throughout the franchise. Who can forget the tension while he is suspended inches over a motion-activated floor, trying to balance himself and avoid tripping the alarms? Or the ending sequence with Cruise trying to stop a villain on top of a speeding train while dodging another villain in a helicopter? Mission: Impossible is a perfect popcorn movie – it’s got fun action, likable characters, villains chewing the scenery, and enough surprises to keep you guessing up until the end. A fantastic way to start a strong franchise. I can’t wait to see what the team has in store next year.
That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed this look at the career of Tom Cruise. I’ll be back for part two next week. Thanks for reading and if you’d like to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe here.