Robert Redford’s piercing blue eyes are piercing. And blue. (Damn but that’s a hot man right there.)
Tom Cruise plays the very special brand of crazy he’s so gosh darned good at. (See his clever take-off of religious psychos in the form of the recently released $cientology parody video for another example – what do you mean that wasn’t a parody? — Fine, but he’s playing the same kind of crazy-eyed role here. He really is a very good actor, braincrazy or not.)
Michael Peña, though, helped make this movie much more appealing to me. He has such warmth about his screen presence. I reckon he helped make Shooter as well.
The story is two angles of the same story (and two threads of one of those angles), with a political science prof (Redford) talking to a promising but underachieving young student, while two former students of his (Peña & the very good Derek Luke) are on a mission in Waronterroristan, and at the same time a Senator (Cruise) dishes about his new military strategy to a longserving journalist (Meryl Streep), the same military strategy that has dictated the mission the boys are on.
The movie felt short, like it wasn’t even really a movie at all. Like it was a one shot TV special or something. These hour and a half movies just don’t taste right to me.
And yet, it was still very good. (Even if the ending left something to be desired.)
(Parenthesis.)