Four Cs and a B+

Rating: Null/10 (9 February 2002)

What do you have if you take two Cruises and two Camerons? Four Cs and a B+, that's what. The first two Cs are Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz who are playboy publisher David Aames and his newly-discovered love (both on and off-screen). The second two Cs are Cameron Diaz as Aames' `f**k-buddy' Julie and Cameron Crowe as both writer and director of this strange thriller set in New York with an appealing soundtrack.
Is David Aames demented or dreaming? Is he a murderer or a victim of a set up? Who knows? More relevantly, who really cares? If Aames seems thoroughly bewildered by what is happening to him, maybe you'd be confused if you had to choose between making love four times a night to someone like Diaz and having an idyllic relationship with someone like Cruz.

The movie  a remake of the 1997 Spanish work `Open Your Eyes'  tries hard to be clever and original and has some memorable scenes with Cruise often looking like the `Phantom Of The Opera', but it only partly succeeds, leaving me at least more than a little perplexed. In short, no more than B+.