If I had to create a list of premises for Tom Cruise movies that I would find implausible solely because Tom Cruise was in them, it would go something like this:
• A movie in which Tom Cruise has an ethnic or regional accent
• A period piece
• A movie in which Tom Cruise is a champion prize fighter
• A movie in which Tom Cruise tames wild horses by punching them in the nose
• A movie in which Tom Cruise builds the entire transcontinental railroad
So imagine my surprise when I watched Far and Away, a movie in which all of these things are true.
Far and Away tries to incorporate political unrest in Ireland and the frontiers of colonial America in the same story, and does neither well. At first I actually thought it was intentionally supposed to be a farce because the first act of the movie features a scene in which Tom Cruise (Joseph) is naked and asleep in bed, uncovered except for a cooking bowl covering his genitals. Nicole Kidman (Shannon) sneaks into the room and tries to sneak a peek at the good stuff. Slapstick ensues.
I’m not sure how much time to spend recanting the plot and characters because the movie is just a mess. Joseph is an idealistic working class Irishman and Shannon is a naive, spoiled brat. They meet because Joseph wants to murder Shannon’s father, who owned the land Joseph’s father owned. Shannon wants to move to America because they’re giving away free land in Oklahoma! All you have to do is stake your claim. They end up in Boston.
At one point Joseph decides to run away. Away from Shannon and her family who have come to Boston to find her and the Boston mobsters who revered him and then rejected him. So he starts running. Literally running, arms flailing, gasping for air, bug-eyed and mouth agape. The Tom Cruise run’s japanese RPG style monstrous final form. Cut to the American frontier. Joseph has run all the way to the burgeoning American rail system. Dynamite explodes, creating a giant hole in a nearby mountain. Cut to Joseph asleep on a cot on a train. A few minutes later he decides to leave his job and go to Oklahoma after all. Shannon happens to be there. “I came on a train,” she says. The movie tells us that it’s been three months.
In a way, this movie is the Tom Cruise run. It moves at a breakneck pace, never stopping to ponder or explain. It flails about from one historical trope to another, mingling slapstick and awkward sexual tension with class unrest, poverty and violence.
You don’t know what it thinks it’s doing or whether you’re supposed to laugh at it. But like Tom Cruise, it’s trying, and it seems to know where it’s going.
Next: Aaron Sorkin’s screenwriting debut, A Few Good Men
Every Tom Cruise Movie 