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I've decided to review of all of movies of Tom Cruise that I've seen-- which I guess is actually only three: The Last Samurai, Valkyrie, and Minority Report.... And if I had to rank them, I guess that that would be the order that I would put them in, yeah-- just because I'm thinking of the guy. And.... Why could that be? (Seriously, though, this is nothing against Katie Holmes: I just like to keep myself amused.)
"There is some comfort in the emptiness of the sea, no past, no future."
This won't be the best review that I've ever written, but I remember being kinda impressed by this movie, and by Tom's performance in it, whenever I saw it.... I enjoyed it much much more than I thought that I would.... I guess that I unconsciously had this image of Tom Cruise as a moron, and, especially back when I saw this, I sorta had this assumption that *the American* in a movie like this would of course be a giant loser moron in one way or another, (just like George Clooney in "The American" goes out of his way to make himself look like a mass-murdering fuckhead for some reason), but Tom Cruise, again, honestly, to my surprise, in this movie, not only learned how to fight-- and he did have to *learn* how to do it-- but he also was very.... Contemplative, human.... Intelligent-- and convincingly so. And he discovered the ways of the Japanese and of the samurai without making the movie an anthropological documentary, and he became, I think, just as good as any of them-- and without stealing their thunder, either, again, in my opinion.
And, in fact, some of the dialogue was *very* well done.... Although I'm not sure how effective it would be to try to copy out a paragraph or two.... but one exchange that stuck in my memory for some reason is, when Tom is asked what his rank is in the army, and so on, and he says that he's a captain. And because this man-- who is basically still a stranger and a foreigner to him, at this point-- evidently expected him to be a general or something, he asks-- "Is that a.... Low rank?"
And Tom pauses slightly but noticeably, before deciding....
"It's a middle rank."
And, you know, on reflection-- that movie, was, I think, slightly better than perhaps I appreciated before.
(10/10)
