Tom Cruise delivers.

Rating: 8/10 (2 January 2013)

Tom Cruise as an action hero works. The movie contains all the elements for a good action crime movie. Tom Cruise is the star (it's also his movie). He does it all, and does it well. The story is intriguing although a bit contrived and after a while Tom Cruise's anti-hero persona begins to become over baked, but not to the point where it has to be tossed from the oven. The supporting cast is uniformly excellent, especially Rosamund Pike who plays the principal female lead. Now, the idea of framing a patsy to a crime is hardly an original one, but this movie manages to apply this formula with good results. There is one chase scene that is especially entertaining. Everybody is chasing everybody, like something out a Keystone Kops movie. But Tom Cruise turns in an energetic performance which keeps the movie together. Robert Duvall is also in this movie and his performance is, not unexpectedly, excellent. He is a great actor. There's a lot of impressive panoramic shots of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where the story is set. Although it's not an earth-shattering major motion picture, the movie entertains and that alone is reason enough to watch it.