Wednesday, April 9, 2008

by Ari

These are interesting times for Tom Cruise. He's taken a pretty tough beating lately for one reason or another, and it's an unfortunate situation whether you think he deserves it or not. With this latest news of Valkyrie's delay to February 09, it's clear that a lot of people in the industry and online film community would like to see him burn at the stake. The way this announcement by UA has been so overblown by critics and audiences is fairly ridiculous, and the way some of these people are so ready to dismiss Cruise and the film is a definite indication of how close his career is to certain death.

When I started The Aspect Ratio I made a promise to myself to focus only on the films and to not bother with the lives these actors and filmmakers lead. That stuff doesn't interest me, and I'm not about to change that. I have my feelings on certain things regarding Roman Polanski, Elia Kazan and so on, and I definitely have an opinion on Scientology, but I'm also capable of separating those things from the art these people create. If you're not, it's understandable. I don't feel the same way, but it's understandable. The issue with Valkryie is a bit out of control, though. It's like people want to see Cruise and his movie result in complete disaster. Have these critics and fans forgotten what a brilliant actor this guy is when he gets the right role? I'm not sure how anyone could dismiss an actor who possesses this level of talent.

Cruise has been a superstar since he arrived with Risky Business and Top Gun. He could've taken a much easier route to maintain his success throughout the years, but the fact is, he decided to work with some of the best filmmakers around. For such an enormous star, it's pretty admirable that his filmography includes movies directed by Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, Michael Mann, Oliver Stone, Barry Levinson, Paul Thomas Anderson and Cameron Crowe. Some of those directors have used him for mainstream entertainment, some for art films, some for a mixture of the two. Not all of the films have been amazing, but most of them are at least pretty good. But seriously, do people really want the actor from Born on the 4th of July and Rain Man to disappear? What about Collateral? The Color of Money? Magnolia? Minority Report? It seems absurd to me.

Look at the range of those performances. He's hilarious in Color of Money, he's damn near horrifying in Collateral, he's tragic and uplifting in Born on the 4th. This is great work. I know most people point to Hoffman's performance in Rain Man, but if you give the film a closer look, you'll realize it's Cruise's story. It's his character who has the arc. He's the reason the film has the emotional power it does. And for me, there's no moment in Magnolia as heartbreaking as the scene where Mackey sits by his dying father and breaks down. All that hatred and pain and love comes out of his character at that point, and there's a brutal honesty to Cruise's emotional release that brings me to tears every time I see it. And then there's his masterpiece performance in that little Kubrick movie called Eyes Wide Shut. It's a portrait of male insecurity and sexual confusion that showed just how subtle Cruise can be under the guidance of a great filmmaker. There's a storm of emotion brewing under the surface of his character, but that intensity doesn't blow-up like it would in a lesser film about those themes. Watch the way he quietly stares at Kidman while she's telling him about the man she desired. Watch how his desperation subtly reveals itself when he demands the address of the mansion from Todd Field. There's his frozen, speechless anger as his wife describes her erotic dream. His horror as Sydney Pollack calls the events at the orgy a charade. "What kind of fucking charade ends with someone dead!" It's the most emotionally complex and accomplished work of his career.

As I said, how can you dismiss an actor with that kind of talent? It just makes no sense to me. Maybe Valkyrie is a troubled film and the move to February is a desperate attempt to make some more money. Maybe it's actually pretty good. I'll wait and see. But really, I think a few of these people should go rent Rain Man and remember that this guy can act. As for the future of his career, vote one for bad, two for good. I vote two, thank you.