Tom Cruise. Such an achiever. Such a hero! Remember that time some years back when he was even saving people in real life at traffic accidents and stuff?
It’s no wonder that Cruise has sustained one of the longest-running screen idol careers in movie history. At 55, he still fiercely commits himself to making every project as good as it can be (unless, perhaps, it’s called “The Mummy”), insists on doing his own, often insanely dangerous stunts (which cost him a broken ankle on the latest “Mission: Impossible” production), and radiates winning screen presence (off-screen too; he really is one of the nicest, most conscientious guys in Hollywood, the occasional couch-jumping jag notwithstanding),
Impressive as he’s been, though, as Mr. “Top Gun,” M:I’s Ethan Hunt and so many other best-of-the-best good guys, we think Cruise excels most at playing heels. The actor is inevitably more fascinating to watch when there’s ethical compromise behind that million dollar smile – or sociopathic absence in his rare but chilling scowls.
“American Made” gives us another one of Cruise’s patented rogues, the real good ol’ boy pilot Barry Seal who was a key, greedy player in all kinds of shady, Reagan-era dealings that led up to the Iran-Contra Scandal. He’s an affable, can-do character like so many others Cruise has played, a devoted family man and even, by the end, a victim of larger, more amoral forces. He’s also an unrepentant liar, drug smuggler, gun-runner and accessory to everything from murder to insurrection.
Seal, then, is a fine Cruise SOB, right up there with the fast-talking coward from his best recent film, “Edge of Tomorrow” (directed, like “American Made,” by Doug Liman), “Eyes Wide Shut’s” wayward Kubrickian husband and the privileged teen pimp that made him a star in “Risky Business.”
But Tom Cruise has played worse people. Which, for the purposes of this article, means better characters. In honor of his latest lowlife, we list, in order of sublime despicability, our five favorite Tom Cruise bastards.
5.”Tropic Thunder’s” Les Grossman: For Ben Stiller’s 2008 satire of action movie-making, Cruise put on a fat suit, bald cap, ugly glasses and huge prosthetic hands to play the shouty studio head. This full-blown comic burlesque, no doubt informed by some of the producers the actor had made rich (and who made him a star), is far and away the most complete, vulgar and hilarious transformation the actor has ever pulled off. It was Cruise’s idea to have Grossman dance to “Low,” too.
4. “Jerry Maguire” title role: Yes, he’s mainly a sports agent with something resembling scruples, and he gets redeemed repeatedly in Cameron Crowe’s 1996 dramedy (and greatest movie). But the way that Cruise plays Jerry as repeatedly befuddled by the part of him that came up with his career-endangering Mission Statement, along with how the actor arm-wrestles Jerry’s inclination to play dirty whenever he needs to prevail or just survive, makes Maguire Cruise’s most compellingly complex moral fool.
3. “Rain Man’s” Charlie Babbitt: Again, redeemed by the end (sigh; why?). But until then, God, what a jerk! Cruise’s dishonest auto importer tries for the bulk of a cross-country road trip to rook Raymond, the autistic savant brother he didn’t know he had, out of their dead father’s fortune, and it seems like there’s no coldhearted depth Charlie won’t stoop to. Cruise not only gets points for this sustained display of humorless self-interest, but also for the gracious selflessness of his straight man work to Dustin Hoffman’s relentless, showy technique. Hoffman, director Barry Levinson and the picture all won 1988 Academy Awards. Never-Oscared Cruise, the steel core of this film, wasn’t even nominated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPbG9uU7BiI
2. “Collateral’s” Vincent the contract killer: Far colder than even “Interview with the Vampire’s” Lestat, Cruise’s most flat-out villain is a marvel of disciplined malice. While forcing Jamie Foxx’s hapless cabbie Max to drive him around Michael Mann’s dangerously lit, nighttime L.A. in this 2004 neo-noir, Vincent drops sadistic psychological hammers on the poor driver and even threatens to kill Max’s hospitalized mother. He’ll put anyone in harm’s way, or murder them himself, without a second thought. Cruise, however, thought the whole characterization through; somehow this superkiller always feels 100 percent human.
1. “Magnolia’s” Frank T.J. Mackey: The “Seduce and Destroy” motivational speaker from Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling, 1999 look at emotional dysfunction in the San Fernando Valley makes a living being the world’s worst sexist pig. But the profane, unforgiving spleen of this alleged dating guru – malignly magnificent as all that is – is just the surface of a character Cruise imbues with all of the audience-engaging tricks at his formidable command. When Mackey gives his male loser clientele a seminar on “How to Fake Like You Are Nice and Caring,” it is utterly bone-chilling.
