The Actors we lost in Stars – Part 2 : Tom Cruise

Relevance. That is pretty much what Hollywood actors are all about. How long is one present in the industry? How many important roles are they getting? How relevant are they for the movie industry?

Most actors degrade their best works by doing mediocre roles in their later career. We have Sylvester Stallone doing movies like Expendables and Bullet to the Head, Arnold Schwarzenegger doing roles in Escape Plan and The Last stand, degrading their iconic roles in Rocky, Rambo and Terminator. Even seasoned veterans like Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are not untouched by this phenomena. Closer home, yesteryear superstars like Rajesh Khanna and Dev Anand, capped off their legendary careers with highly forgettable movies like Riyasat (2014), Wafa (2008) and Chargesheet (2011).

Not so subtle beginning

But there’s one actor who has been highly relevant and still going strong after more than 30 years in the Hollywood industry. He has outlasted many of his contemporaries since making debut in a lead role in Risky Business (1983). Tom Cruise has worked in so many genres with so many iconic directors, that it is impossible for any future movie star to have so many credible movie to their names. He has worked with directors like, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Brian De Palma, Cameron Crowe, Rob Reiner, Oliver Stone and even Ben Stiller! You don’t get to work with these directors without being a genuinely good artiste. He didn’t have an epic script always, he had great directors getting epic performances out of him.

The most well made heist scene

Since his rockstar pilot role in Top Gun (1986) as Maverick, stardom had been thrust on him. He stood up against Paul Newman in Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money (1986). For a while it was said that maybe he can only do these eccentric characters only. But time and again he proved his critics wrong by doing character roles in movies such as Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Rain man (1988) and A Few Good Men (1992). His court battle with Jack Nicolson in the finale of A Few Good Men is as classic as it gets. By mid-90s Hollywood had 2 superstars: Tom Cruise and Jim Carrey. There were many stars and many actors. There was Tom Hanks, Eddie Murphy, John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, etc. But these two were the most bankable of them all. And they both took different paths to lengthen their hold on top of pyramid. 

The Help me help you scene

While showing his action skills in spy thriller Mission Impossible (1996), he was also doing a role of subtle warrior in Jerry Maguire (1996). 1996 may have been his pinnacle in the long career. On one hand we got to experience an American James Bond in his role as Ethan Hunt, on the other hand we had Jerry Maguire where Cruise was veering into the territory of Tom Hanks! Jerry Maguire was his most restrained yet combatant role. This was Tom Cruise at his best. When you see him asking Cuba Gooding Jr to “Help me help you”, you just wish him to succeed and have everything in life. He made us attach to that selfish character. He then went on to do some extra-territorial work in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and Magnolia (1999). 

In 2002 came Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report (2002), the first Tom

Futuristic. Directed by Spielberg.

Cruise movie I ever watched. Even at that time I realized difference between him and so many other action stars. He is so much professionally involved for even action movies like Minority Report and Mission Impossible series, which you didn’t get from other actors. You would never be worried about Jason Statham in Transporter series, or Matt Damon in Bourne series. But there’s something about his embroilment in his movies that it makes you cheer for him. Even at that time he was doing highly emotional movie like The Last Samurai (2003). Even his highly underrated Michael Mann’s Collateral (2004) has a stupendous performance from Cruise and a marvelous chemistry between Cruise and Jamie Foxx.

The moment that changed it all

But then, in 2005 came the turning point of his life. His appearance in Oprah Winfrey show changed his life and career for good. He was odd and seemed high for a bit, and then he jumped on the couch to express his love for Katie Holmes which was totally insane. Before that incident no one ever knew how Tom Cruise was in his personal life. He rarely gave one-on-one interviews and seldom discussed his personal life. But that one moment gave the tabloids the fodder it needed on this guy. And it destroyed his image in the eyes of his audience for a long time. Coupled with that, his support for religion of Scientology. A religion which has less thing to do with Science than even Harry Potter saga. Tom Cruise, after that incident was a peculiar and bizarre person in public eyes. Even though almost all the people who have worked with him has only good things to say. But in America, Tom Cruise is a living example of how Tabloid world can ruin a person.

This not only affected him in his personal life, but his career nosedived for a while. Even a brilliant screenplay and direction from J J Abrams couldn’t save Cruise’s tent-pole Mission Impossible 3 from being the least earner of the movie. It was more due to the fact that his off-screen persona was affecting his on-screen work. The movie was several notches higher than the previous one but still it failed at the box-office. He was never cast in a role of subtle aggressor like that of Jerry Maguire and A Few Good Men. Those roles were as perfectly portrayed by Cruise as it could have been by even the best actors of the industry.

The last great role

Although, we had Valkyrie (2008), where he played the role of Claus von Stauffenberg, who plotted to kill Adolf Hitler in 1944. As always he played his part to perfect, but it was very inconveniently ignored by audience and critics alike.

After that what we really got was one action movie after another. No doubt he was great in all of those. Knight & Day (2010), Mission Impossible 4 (2011), Jack Reacher (2012), Oblivion (2013), Edge of Tomorrow (2014) and now again Mission Impossible 5 (2015). To be fair, Tom Cruise still gives himself all in for these movies. He is one of the most hard-working actor. For the ridiculous amount of money he gets for his roles, he doesn’t let his directors down and gives intense performances every time. He does it all: the tough stunts, the smallest talk show interviews and those intense runs. He even does his own ridiculous stunts. Be it dangling from 150^th floor on Burj Al Arab or hanging on the side of Boeing as it takes off and travels at a height of 15000 feet. We are surely getting great superstar performances. But he has transformed himself into more popular and more talented version of Jason Statham.

The most insane scene of all time

But still we are missing something. We are missing a great Tom Cruise performance. We are missing a helpless rebel of Born on The Fourth of July, an indifferent but caring brother of Rain man, an adamant lawyer of A Few Good Men. We are missing a romantic Tom Cruise performance, we are missing a “You had me at hello” performance.

The most romantic scene of all time!

Is it all due to reluctance of directors to cast him in such movies or is it his own sub conscious decision? We may never know.

But in recent years the public perception of Cruise has turned little favorable even though he went through his 3^rd divorce with Katie Holmes. A small credit to this turn should go to his funny role in Tropic Thunder (2008) as Les Grossman. People were surprised to find that he has some funny bones in there. He did diverse roles earlier in his career, but has stopped taking risks in the characters he plays for last some years.

And there's a new Mission Impossible movie coming on August 7 which looks pretty incredible. Christopher McQuarry (writer of Usual Suspects) has directed it. So we can expect a strong script coupled with strong performance from Cruise. But it still is another action Cruise!

Yet another Improbable Mission!

Maybe someday he will combine with some great director again and turn a mediocre script into marvelous movie.

As a last superstar of Hollywood, who still draws in audience on his face value it will be a sad end if we remember his last relevant roles from his action and mission movies only.

PS: “Last Superstar? But Robert Downey Jr is a more bankable superstar” - The Judge (2014), his only solo original movie in recent years couldn’t gross $100 million worldwide ($83 Million). Tom Cruie’s least grossing original movie in last 10 years is World War 2 drama-thriller Valkyrie ($200 Million). So that's why: The Last Superstar.

The Actors we lost in Stars – Part 1 : Ajay Devgan

It was year 2002, an era of local cables on television. Dish TVs were not born in India yet and internet was in its infancy. The friendly local cable provided with enough channels to fulfill our thirst of drama serials, music channels and Indian cricket matches. On top of that, they showed us latest movies in the same week of their release on their local movie channels. 

In Jamnagar, we had Jay Cable and on one such Saturday night it was showing the latest Ajay Devgan and Akshay Khanna starrer Deewangee. Me and my brother watched it for nearly 30 minutes and just as we were going to switch off the television out of boredom, a stammering and reluctant Ajay Devgan on-screen transformed into a violent and cunning personality as he had multiple personality disorder in the story. It was an epic act which made us both his fan for life. This was the first time we were watching a film of so many suspense and thrills (after Gupt (1997), of course).

Here's that scene:

Those searing eyes. National Award worthy!

The same year Ajay Devgan came up with stellar performance in Legend of Bhagat Singh for which he won National Award for Best Actor. But the movie which made me really venerate him was Company (2002). It is the best underworld crimes movie in my book. And what made it so remarkable was the acting of Ajay Devgan. The intensity, the dialogue delivery and those deep eyes of Ajay Devgan would have got him a nomination in Oscars if the movie was released in America. Although he is the only actor amongst current A-Listers to bag 2 National Awards.
In fact, when you go back to late 90s he did remarkable acts in Kachche Dhaage(1999) and Zakhm (1998), latter of which got him National Award. One can only wonder after watching Zakhm, why Mahesh Bhatt left direction. But that's story for another day.

The next few years in mid-2000s were some of the best ‘acting’ years of Ajay Devgan. He was a strong SP Amit Kumar in Gangajal (2003), he was vulnerable and forlorn Manoj in Raincoat (2004) and lost king in Omkara (2006).

After 2006 we rarely got to see the real intensity of Ajay Devgan in movies. 

The last great Underworld movie

He is far superior actor than gets credit for, especially in dark roles. It was rumored that the director of Khakee, Rajkumar Santoshi made Ajay Devgan wear shades in most of the scenes so that his intense eyes don’t steal thunder from Amitabh’s angry old man act.

He started trying his hands at comedy. He didn’t seem to realise that he is not a natural comic actor like Akshay Kumar as many of his movies did ran successfully due to multiple cast and lame but comic storyline. Case in point: Golmaal (2006). A great comedy movie it was but not due to the comic chops of Devgan but that of Rohit Shetty, Arshad Warsi and Sharman Joshi.

The last great act!

After that came the era of run-of-the-mill action movies borne out of Salman starrer Wanted (2009). With that Ajay Devgan became Ajay Devgn and he couldn’t resist being a part of this wagon and did Singham (2011) and Singham Returns (2014). He would go on to do slapstick action comedy drama convoluted plots for the sake of money assosciated with this temporary genre of recent era. These movies would play on the star status of A-list actors and provide the viewer anything but a decent plot!

To be fair he did few movies like Once Upon a Time in Mumbai (2010), Aakrosh (2010) and Satyagraha (2013), where he was his former self again with powerful and impactful roles. Flashes of brilliance. But for every Sooraj Kumar of Rajneeti (2010) to get hopes high there is Jassi of Son of Sardar (2012) to get you disappointed.

So, did we lose Ajay Devgn, the actor to Ajay Devgn, the superstar?

Not the reason we fell in love
with Ajay Devgn

Not everything is Mr. Devgn’s fault. Even the audience rejected movies like Aakrosh and U me aur Hum (2008) where he gave some sincere performances. And chose to spend their money and whistles not once but twice for Bajirao Singham which only made him sign more and more Himmatwalas and Son of Sardars.

Please just stop with these movies

All hopes are still not lost for the actor we had fall in love with as the incredible failure of Action Jackson (absurdity screeni-fied) and Himmatwala (non-sense personified) might have jolted him to think over it.

And with a movie like Drishyam coming at the end of July, we may see return of the intensity of Ajay Devgn’s eyes in movies. Incidentally, Drishyam is all about visions that Ajay Devgn sees through a particular medium. I can only reveal it has one hell of a story if only director is able to present it well. Let’s not do with Drishyam what we did with Aakrosh where we killed a pretty decent movie because Ajay Devgn was not killing his villains after tearing his shirt.

Here's the trailer for the latest movie Drishyam

Here’s hoping to return of serious, menacing Ajay Devgan to screen.

PS: Years later I came across Primal Fear (1996) starring Edward Norton and Richard Gere. Deewangee was heavily ‘inspired’ by it. And Edward Norton got a nomination at Oscars for same role portrayed by Ajay Devgan in Deewangee. I saw both and I still feel Ajay was better.

PS PS: Aakrosh is also a copy of Mississippi Burning (1988). Ajay Devgn has a tendency to work in remakes of Classic Hollywood movies for unknowing Indian crowds.

Psst Psst: Drishyam is also a remake of Tamil and Malayalam movie starring Kamal Hassan and Mohanlal. I would urge you to watch the Tamil version to watch the master of cinema Kamal Hassan at play and also for its riveting story. And then watch Drishyam on 31st July to watch mesmeric Ajay Devgn at play.