‘Knight and Day’ (2010)

‘Knight and Day’, starring Cruise and Cameron Diaz and directed by James Mangold, came out  last week, and while it didn’t dominate the box office the way it’s blinding star power suggests it should have, it did mark the return to form of one of Hollywood’s most talented and most captivating leading men. Say what you will about Cruise’s personal life, and given the fact that he’s done his best to make it our business through several depressingly earnest interviews and his widely followed brainwashing of Katie Holmes I don’t blame you. Frankly, I’m of the opinion that Tom Cruise the person is completely insane, under the thrall of the powerful and dangerous cult of Scientology. He’s not someone I’d trust feed my cats on vacation, for fear that I’d come back to find him maniacly telling me that he’ skewered them onto my tv antennae and strung them with eleven amplifying garden tubers his auditor gave him for $20,000 to construct a feline divining rod, which he plans on using to reincarnate the thetans and clear the planet of engrams. But his personal life and his work are two seperate things, driven by the same wellspring of blazing Tom-energy; the same aspects of his personality that make him so manic and passionate about Scientology in interviews probably also feed energy into his acting. I’m able to create a dichotomy with Cruise, hating the person but adoring the actor.

Tom Cruise the actor is without a doubt one of the top five most talented actors in Hollywood. I base this not just on straight acting ability, his utterly convincing and engrossing characters, but on his entertainment factor as well. Lots of actors are talented, but no one is as much fun to watch as Cruise. From Maverick to Ethan Hunt, watching Tom Cruise is like riding a giant looping steel roller coaster with AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” blasting in your ears. Roy Miller, his character in ‘Knight and Day’, is the latest Tom to take the reins of the party train, and Cruise’s dynamite performance paired with a clever and at times flat out hilarious script take you on a memorable ride powered by high octane stunts and solid supporting performances by Diaz, Paul Dano, and Peter Saarsgard.

I normally don’t like Cameron Diaz’s disgustingly bubblegum performances, but in ‘Knight and Day’ her June Havens is actually the perfect foil to Cruise’s Miller. Not all critics are a agreeing with my praise of the film, and this may be becuase they’re not as in love with Tom as I am, but the common themes in their criticisms I’ve found to be baseless. “Physics defying action so preposterous…” and “mindlessly preposterous…” were two comments that I’d like to point out because for some reason these critics are saying this is a bad thing. Listen, I didn’t buy a ticket to ‘Knight and Day’ and expect to see ‘The Pianist’ (2002), or even an action film with more realism like ‘The Bourne Identity’ (2002). I expected some bad ass physics defying stunts just held together enough by a passable plot to not fall apart under their own sheer awesomeness, and that folks, is exactly what I got.

To cite just one jaw dropping scene (which I’d like to add was mindfully choreographed. You can’t make action this fun with a blindfold on): as Diaz is driving at break neck speed down the highway, chased by bad guys, Cruise catches up to her on a motorcycle. As she drives by an uphill offramp on the right, we see from inside her car out the back windshield Cruise driving up the ramp beside her. He’s moving faster than her, and the camera pans to the left to follow him, but since we’re inside the car the roof of the car momentarily blocks our view of him. As we pan over to the front windshield we see the motorcycle, now riderless, flying through the air. A pause, and then bam! Cruise lands chest down on the hood of Diaz’s car. Diaz screams, and Cruise calmly quips, with the air of someone meeting a date for dinner, “That’s a really pretty dress June”. Sounds preposterous? That’s because it is. But with Tom at the helm, you believe it, and settle in for what you can already tell is going to be one hell of a ride.

-Patrick O’Roark