Cruising for a Bruising

Rating: Null/10 (17 September 2004)

Adapt, improvise, roll with it; yea yea yea, as we have not so much another 'Tom Cruise' vehicle, as instead 'Tom Cruise' in a vehicle. This time around the ex Mr Kidman, is a hit man (no not like Pete Waterman') out for night on the town, with the small matter of having to whack five people along the way. Providing the transportation function for all of this is dim witted cabbie 'Jamie Foxx' (no not the brother of Edward). Still I suppose you can't blame him for having his head turned by a full six hundred dollars, with half of it even being provided up front. The fact that probably three times that worth of damage is done to his cab after the first hit, probably dosen't cross his mind; but then why should it as 'Tom' had a nice word with his boss to straighten it all out.
You see for me the whole problem with this film is Mr Cab Driver. After all he has ample opportunity to leg it, but instead he just carries along, whilst moaning about what is going on. 'Cruise' is well pretty much what you would expect, but with silver hair. Oh yes I almost forgot, he is called Vincent, making me wonder is he the same character from THE COLOR OF MONEY, having since fallen out of love with his pool cue. I am guessing that this is the first film 'Cruise' has made with 'Michael Mann', which I would have thought was a match made in heaven (i.e. all style and no substance). Somewhat of a shame then that the excellent 'Mark Ruffalo' wasn't more than just some bit part LAPD detective. If he had been in Cruise's role this film might have had some real edge.
LA looked nice with all that neon lighting though. Other than that, a standard Saturday night movie affair, and then forget it.
Mike filmfan99uk