Maybe Tom Cruise is actually a vampire. Maybe for his entire career he has been playing a gregarious, obsessive human to disguise his true identity. Evidence:

• He has weirdly shaped teeth. 
• He doesn’t seem to have aged.
• He belongs to a bizarre religion that probably doesn’t believe in drinking human blood, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
• The women he marries tend to turn into pale, lifeless wisps.

The Firm is surprisingly subtle. It is a movie about lawyers in which we never see a courtroom. It is a movie with a clear sense of morality – The titular firm is bad and Tom Cruise is good – but with a great deal of sympathy for the characters who personify the firm and what it does.

The thing I found myself thinking over and over again while watching The Firm was that the movie could never have been greenlit in today’s cinema. It is not an overly serious, preachy drama. There are no monologues at all that I can recall, and certainly none where characters yell and pound their chest about their worldviews. The plot takes odd turns, indulging in characters like Holly Hunter’s Tammy, her husband, an Elvis impersonator, and her lover, an ex-con-turned-private-investigator played by Gary Busey. An important character central to the resolution of the plot is introduced in the latter part of the third act.

The Firm is also not a typical summer action blockbuster. There are a few gunshots in the movie but outside of the now-requisite Tom Cruise running scene all of the action occurs off screen and nobody saves the world at all. In fact, at the end of the movie Tom Cruise goes out of his way to NOT save the world. It would not have been successful in today’s cinema, and if it had been approved and marketed and sold to American audiences it definitely would not have starred Tom Cruise.

The score is surprising, too, steering clear of sweeping classical strings and almost completely devoid of a soundtrack, almost entirely filled with playful, bluesy piano. It serves as an indicator, a nod from Sydney Pollack the Director saying “yes, this is kind of a silly premise for a movie. It’s ok. Let’s just have some fun.” And it is fun. The movie works.

I’m not sure if we’re at an irreversible point in American cinema where movies like The Firm can’t emerge in Hollywood and people must turn to television for modest adult-oriented dramas where people solve their problems mostly through talking, but it does seem like the last 10 years of movies have been almost completely devoid of films like this. I know that isn’t entirely true, and a lot of medium to low budget dramas are being produced and made and exist slightly under the radar only to be discovered on Netflix or touted by cinephiles until their friends eventually cave and pretend they like them, but the fact that these movies aren’t present in our common pop culture conversations is kind of the point.

And I can’t say that I even care, either, because I’m as guilty as the next guy of getting excited about whatever Thanos is going to do with that stupid glove and watching big strong men punch each other into buildings in 150 minute chunks. I probably wouldn’t even go see The Firm if it came out in theaters today. But I can tell you that I was a whole lot more satisfied after watching it than I was at the end of The Avengers: Age of Ultron, which I watched on the same flight.

Ok, I didn’t mean for this to be so cynical. The Firm is okay. It’s not going to change your life, but it’s well made. The performances are good. I know you don’t really care and are just waiting for me to get to Mission: Impossible. Me too.

Next: Interview with the Vampire

Full disclosure: I am an unabashed Aaron Sorkin supporter. Not everyone is, and I get that. Aaron Sorkin doesn’t feel the need to write dialogue that resembles human conversation. He tells us that his protagonists are flawed, but doesn’t often show us. His plays are often essays, or perhaps more accurately, lectures on his worldview. He also finds a unique poetry in the cadence and repetition of musical theater (he was a musical theater major in college and often cites Gilbert and Sullivan and other wordy music) which leads to exchanges like this:

“We either get it done or I’m gonna hang your boy from a fucking yardarm.”
“A yardarm? Sherman does the navy still hang people from yardarms?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Dave, Sherman doesn’t think the navy hangs people from yardarms anymore.”

I think the reason that some people don’t like Sorkin is because he finds time for the meticulousness of language but often doesn’t seem to be concerned about the drama of his stories. Early in A Few Good Men, we see a crime being committed. Then we learn the perpetrators of the crime and see the discussions and preamble to the crime itself. We know the guilty parties without a doubt before the plot of the movie really begins. To Sorkin, the more interesting part is the argument, not the result.

He is interested in the moment when the hero (who has been capable of beating the villain all along) realizes his capabilities and responsibilities. He believes that some people are intrinsically better than others and that those people have the duty to use their powers for good.

In short, he believes in superheroes.

Tom Cruise is this movie’s superhero. Everyone else is flawed, makes mistakes, lies and takes shortcuts, but Cruise’s character Danny Kaffee is tasked with simply realizing that he is a great attorney. He is better than his legendary now-deceased attorney father, he is better than the entire United States Marine Corps.

This movie has a lot of wonderful moments. If you like wordy, idealistic legal dramas, I would suggest you watch it. I won’t say anything else about the plot.

“Are you asking me out on a date?”
“No.”
“It sounded like you were asking me out on a date.”
“No.”
“I’ve been asked out on dates before, and that’s what it sounds like.”

I’ve mentioned before that Cruise’s career is marked by apprenticeships. In The Color of Money he studies under Paul Newman and Martin Scorcese. In Rain Man he works alongside Dustin Hoffman. In 1999 he’ll star in the last film by the great Stanley Kubrick and one of the first films of P.T. Anderson, widely recognized as the greatest director currently working. It’s hard not to believe that his performance in A Few Good Men is largely motivated by the presence of Jack Nicholson. He even does a Jack Nicholson impersonation in the movie, for God’s sake, and it’s spot on of course.

I’ve also mentioned before that you see the seams and strategies behind Cruise’s choice of role and subject matter during the 80s. He goes from a character actor to a sort of goofy leading man to starring in more serious movies and toeing the line with different approaches to physicality and tone.

Frankly, Sorkin is right in Cruise’s wheelhouse, as it features serious material with many lighthearted moments and dialogue that requires constant commitment and presence, Cruise’s specialties. He’s not the only actor that could make A Few Good Men work (it was a hit play on Broadway before being turned into a film by Rob Reiner) but he is good in it, and he brings a physical presence to his monologue and his bombastic debate with Nicholson at the end that elevates the material by standing up to the heady language.

But it’s worth noting that in the same year, Cruise stars in Far and Away which is a complete misapplication of his talents, and that in 1993 Nicole Kidman stars in a lesser known Sorkin movie called Malice. It’s a strange time in his career and you can see Kidman’s influence more than the careerism that drove his 80s performances.

Anyway, I love this movie. But there are a few things that don’t hold up particularly well:

-The score. Full of minor-key synthesizer, this alone makes the movie feel incredibly dated.
-The constant mentions of Guantanamo Bay. I’m not sure if this is a detracting factor or not, but the fact that Gitmo plays such a prominent role in this movie is a bit distracting considering what we know now.
-Demi Moore’s hair. Eeesh.

Next: The Firm

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 

Days of Thunder is a fast, formulaic movie dripping with sentiment. It’s about all of the things Top Gun is about: masculinity, friendship, and winning. It’s a great popcorn movie. It is all of these things while also being nothing. An empty, deeply-entertaining pit of a movie. If the word “radical” became colloquially used as a positive around this time, it was because of things like this.

“I’m dropping the hammer.”

I believe my reaction when I saw that Born on the Fourth of July was next in my queue of Tom Cruise movies was “eeeuuuuwwurgh.”

I do not like Oliver Stone. I do not like war movies. I do not like biopics. So I figured I was in for a slog.

My problem was Oliver Stone is that he is a master of non-subtlety. When Tom Cruise’s character Ron Kovic is feeling disoriented, Stone’s camera starts flailing around like it’s outside of a car dealership. Kovic is haunted by the horrible moments he experienced during the Vietnam war, so we get to see and hear those moments over and over again.

I find this kind of filmmaking insulting; I feel like the director is watching the movie over my shoulder and pointing out all of the moments of homage, imagery, and reference because I’m clearly not smart enough to enjoy the movie on my own.

This is a true story based on Ron Kovic’s autobiography. We see Kovic growing up on Long Island, NY, then enlisting for the marines and getting paralyzed in Vietnam. The first half of the movie is full of suffering and cliches. Then Kovic returns home and the movie slows down. He slowly changes from an outspoken proponent of the war to a leader of the movement against it. This part of the story is tolerable. It’s even interesting! I don’t know why I had to watch the first hour to get to this part.

I suppose you could argue that Kovic’s journey and transformation are an allegory for the evolution of American ideals and culture. Kovic is literally born on the fourth of July, for God’s sake. He lives an idyllic life of masculinity and willing and religion. And he slowly realizes simultaneously that the world is much more complicated than he thought it was and that the people who think the pastoral dream is true don’t want to confront the truth about America.

Okay? Fine. I admit it. There was some craftsmanship employed in making this movie. I don’t have to like it.

And Tom? Well…

There’s another Tom Cruise movie that we’ll get to eventually called “Tropic Thunder.” Ben Stiller’s character in that movie could be seen as parodying Cruise’s career. If that’s true, then “Born on the Fourth of July” is Cruise’s “Simple Jack.”

He really lays it on the line. He screams and spits and abandons his trademark handsomeness in favor of an ugly, overgrown mustache, a mullet, and the inability to walk. And the performance lacks the nuance and personality that makes Tom great in Risky Business and in Rain Man.

I guess he had to get a movie like this out of his system so he could realize that he isn’t Daniel Day Lewis. The intense connection to reality is what makes Cruise watchable and engaging, and even though this movie is based on a true story, Cruise is unable to make such an unlikable character seem real. The journeyman relevance of this movie in Cruise’s career makes it forgivable, but don’t watch it.

I think this movie also marks the end of the second phase of Cruise’s career. If 1981-1985 were the Pre-Maverick years, that is, the years before he became a huge star, then 1986-1989 are the experimental years, where Cruise tested the waters of a variety of roles of movie stardom.

It’s not that he stopped experimenting after that, but something changed in 1990. And it wasn’t the release of Wilson Phillips’ self-titled debut album.

In 1990, Cruise starred in his first movie with Nicole Kidman.

Next: Days of Thunder

Two years before Rain Man came out, Cruise starred alongside Paul Newman in The Color of Money, and was ceremoniously outclassed by a more experienced movie star capable of showing more depth, personality and character.

Rain Man is strikingly similar in some ways. It’s another Tom Cruise movie that deals closely with the relationship between money and other pursuits. It’s another “actor showcase” which mostly features Cruise and another movie star talking to each other and encountering a variety of situations. It is also, like The Color of Money, a road movie, the plot of which primarily features the two characters trying to get from one place to another.

Rain Man cleaned up at the Oscars. Dustin Hoffman won the Best Actor award. Barry Levinson won Best Director. Ronald Bass and Barry Morrow won Best Original Screenplay. And the film won Best Picture.

Do you notice someone missing from all of this?

I’ll let you in on a secret: Tom Cruise is better than Dustin Hoffman in this movie. Which isn’t to say Dustin Hoffman is bad. He just doesn’t have much to do. His character (Raymond) mostly just says “definitely” a lot and occasionally freaks out and punches himself in the face. Hoffman portrays this expertly. He changes his walk and his voice and believably pivots between stoic and psychotic. But I think the problem with actor recognition is that while it is entertaining and impressive to see an actor transform, the degree of difficulty is much higher for Cruise’s character, Charlie Babbit.

You see, Raymond has built-in credibility and sympathy. The audience can’t help but pity him, and because they can’t relate to what he’s going through, they aren’t in any position to criticize Hoffman’s performance. I’m sure that there are people like Raymond in real life, but I have no idea if the performance is authentic, in the same way that I can’t criticize the performance of Stephanie Corneliussen on Mr. Robot because she delivers most of her lines in Swedish.

However, I can relate to Charlie, who has to show us from the beginning of the film that he is a selfish asshole, and slowly win our trust and sympathy to the point that we want him to stay with Raymond at the end of the story instead of letting him go back to an institution where he would clearly be better off.

This is Cruise’s best performance so far, and I don’t think it’s close. He gets to do Tom Cruise stuff like stomp away from his father’s Buick with his arms flailing in frustration, and flash his winning smile to get the attention of a dowdy bank clerk. But he also has surprisingly subtle moments, like during a hearing near the end of the story where the doctors are trying to ascertain whether Raymond wants to stay with Charlie or not. You just see Cruise in the background, and his eyes show true triumph, then disappointment, without a grin or a flail.

A good comparison, I think, is The Dark Knight, which got a lot of attention for Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker. Ledger is great in the movie, but again it’s mostly for changing his voice and his gait, whereas I think Gary Oldman’s performance is a lot more subtle and affecting.

Cruise has taken on an “apprentice” role a few times in his career – definitely, starring alongside Dustin Hoffman was an opportunity for him to take a role where he knew he would not be the showcase star, but to up his profile and show that he could star in “serious cinema.” His career for the next few years, working with Oliver Stone, Tony Scott, Ron Howard, and Rob Reiner, Robert Duvall, and Jack Nicholson, shows careful career planning as well as a desire to be considered a serious artist.

I’m not in love with the movie, though it was more lighthearted than I thought it would be. There is a lot of poetry in the script which plays a lot with the idea of communication between people who don’t fully understand each other, and isn’t afraid to make fun of Raymond. Barry Levinson also directed Wag the Dog, Bandits, Good Morning Vietnam, and the Natural, and is an underrated purveyor of late 80s / early 90s dramedies.

In the end, though, Rain Man is sort of what you expect.

Next: Born on the Fourth of July

Cocktail is a strange movie. So strange that I’m not sure what to say about it. I think my perception before I saw it the first time was that it was mostly just about Tom Cruise flipping bottles and grinning at people. But it’s actually largely about pursuing money. I think in a lot of ways this movie could even be seen as a companion to Risky Business.

Cruise’s character, Bryan Flanagan, does a lot of things in the pursuit of money during the course of Cocktail including moving to Jamaica, and cheating on his girlfriend with whom he has just had sex in a waterfall. He gets a job at a massive bar designed to look like a prison, where the loud synth-based dance music is occasionally interrupted to allow people to recite horrible poetry, and we are told that this is the hottest club in New York City.

The Color of Money is two hours long. For the first hour, I thought it was about the complicated paradox of talent versus experience. Tom Cruise’s character, Vince, is a young pool player. He’s competitive and wins a lot. He’s arrogant, like Maverick in Top Gun. He exhibits the same smarmy smile, which I imagine 1986 Tom Cruise thought was rougish, but comes off as creepy if not a bit inhuman.

Paul Newman’s character, “Fast Eddie” Felson, is a wise old pool shark. He knows the tricks of the trade of swindling people out of their money. He sees how good Vince is and knows he can use his talent to win big on a longshot bet if he can just get him into a big pool tournament in Atlantic City.

That’s the plot of The Color of Money. Vince, Eddie, and Vince’s girlfriend Carmen travel across the country hustling 9 ball games. Vince keeps fucking up the cons because he doesn’t like to lose games on purpose. He just likes to win. Early in the movie, he offers to front another player the customary $20 per rack bet because he doesn’t care about the money. He says, “I just want your best game.”

Eddie knows that you can’t make a living that way. 26 years before this movie came out, Newman played the same character in the Hustler, in which he was the young hotshot. His skills have atrophied but he still knows the game. It’s interesting how the presence of these two actors in the film mirrors that relationship, the tension between a legend on the decline of his career in Newman and an up-and-coming superstar in Cruise.

As Eddie is frustrated over and over again by Vince’s idealism and naivete, he finds himself pulled back into playing pool himself. He starts hitting pool halls on his own, and getting hustled by the same sharks he used to beat. He’s old, and his vision is fading, and he’s out of practice.

So for the first hour of the movie, I thought that was what it was about. How when you’re a kid and your parents say “when I was your age” and you roll your eyes because how could they ever understand what it was like to be you, right now? You can see both of the characters struggle with this divide, Eddie knowing what he could do with his knowledge and Vince’s talent, and Vince confused about why he has to follow a set of rules instead of just play the game he loves.

Then the movie takes a sharp turn. Eddie makes a comeback. Vince becomes a competent hustler. It’s a strikingly fast change in a movie that moves fairly slowly in terms of plot. And I realized that this movie is actually about something else. It’s about winning.

What does it mean to win something, and how do you define a winner? Is it simply the party that follows the rules to the best result? Is the person who gets the best prize? What happens when someone decides that the rules don’t apply to them?

Vince is competitive and just wants to win. We see that his desire to be the best isn’t limited to pool, it’s about everything in his life. He gets jealous when Carmen or Eddie don’t pay full attention to him. His fear that Carmen might get bored with him and leave him borders on violence. He isn’t content knowing that he is great at pool, he has to beat the best player in the room to prove to everyone that he is better.

For Eddie, winning is about making the maximum possible amount of money. Like Vince, the desire isn’t limited to pool. He sells liquor. He gambles. He cares not just about the value of money but the status it portrays.

The amazing thing about this movie is that each of the characters have such a profound effect on each other that they completely swap worldviews during the film while everything else about them stays the same. Vince is still a young, arrogant prick who now cares more about money than anything else. Eddie is a wise, dodgy old hustler who wants to prove that he’s the best at pool.

Ok. We’re approaching Peak Cruise. The aforementioned smile is in full display. He struts around the table swinging his cue like a katana. He hasn’t mastered the bellowing, smothering charm that dominates films like Jerry Maguire, but it’s close. Unfortunately for Tom he is completely out-acted by Paul Newman. Newman smokes, calls his girlfriend a “shrimp,” throws around hundred dollar bills, and basically spreads his seed all over the reel.

For a movie starring two of the top five or so Hollywood actors of all time, directed by one of the most celebrated directors of all time, it feels pretty small in scale. But it’s fun, engaging, and worth a watch. In case it wasn’t already clear, I really liked it.

Next up: Cocktail, in which we discuss the world’s first barman/poet.