Nothing Original, Wooden Cruise

Rating: 4/10 (11 November 2017)

It's a good thing that Lawrence of Arabia and Dances with Wolves ('Lawrence of the plains') had already been done, else the writers would not have had a ready made script for this movie. And thus there is little that is original here. This too is a "white savior movie", with Cruise the savior. But Cruise is just terrible in this movie. He is a one note actor and relies on a few expressions and drama school techniques which all great actors rise above and develop into their own styles, but Cruise never has elevated himself to. He lacks sensitivity and what makes women (and men) fall in love with an actor, so that, in the end, he has no depth, no charisma, no power, and this role demands quiet power. And now, in the 21st century, all I see when I look at him is what he has become, a rabid cult leader (Scientology).
The rest of the cast save this movie from a 1-star debacle. Superb ensemble. Ken Watanabe is a powerful treasure. His amazing transformation from this role to his delicate performance in Memoirs of a Geisha shows an amazing range. I think he is why Cruise's deficits are so apparent here. And I would watch Timothy Spall in anything. He may be a poor man's Philip Seymour Hoffman, but for me, he is all his own. It is hard to imagine this is the same actor who played a rock band's lovable road manager in Rock Star, but he finely crafts each role.
While I am no fan of white savior movies, I don't mind the implied white apology of some of them. And we Americans do have some apologizing to do, for our extreme hubris and various crimes against humanity. Too bad we can't just get up and say it out loud, apologize, and get it over with, without the racial overtones of movies like this (oh my, the natives/foreigners are really nice and even *funny*, wow!). But until then, our conscience is played out in movies like this. Although hopefully, with less pathos and white dominance than The Last Samurai. Will we ever 'get' it?