Tom Cruise as "one of the most decorated warriors this nation has ever known," circa 1876, a tormented Civil War vet and Indian fighter who is hired as a mercenary to train the troops of the Japanese emperor to combat a renegade samurai, and who is then taken captive by his new enemy, learns their strange ways, masters in a few lessons their martial arts, and joins them in their hopeless fight against the forces of progress. In short, a sort of Dances with Akitas. This glossy, glamorizing, vulgar, overblown, pompous, and presumptuous epic is, in addition to all that, intermittently stimulating. The cornerstone Japanese theme of trampled tradition in the onrush of Westernization is knowledgeably handled. And Ken Watanabe cuts a fine figure as the hidebound samurai. In the last analysis, though, the sprawling, transpacific, two-and-a-half-hour war story is all about Tom. Even as he gives himself up to his fascination with the enemy (who allow him to live only because of their fascination with him), it is the fascination itself, and not the objects of it, that rivets the camera: never mind what's so fascinating, let's fix our sights on who's so fascinated. (Cruise's head looks about to burst from the effort.) And despite his embrace of Bushido -- his spiritual growth, his embodiment of the lost concept of "honor" -- he remains a bit of a dilettante and a poseur. (Where does his humility, his subservience, come into it?) In the larger view, despite the lip service paid to an alien and ancient culture, despite the stacking of the deck in that culture's favor, the horning-in hero remains a sterling representative of the American imperialist, similar to the interlopers and appropriators in such cultural hybrids (highbrow and low) as The Challenge, The Karate Kid, Ghost Dog, Bulletproof Monk, and Kill Bill. The quest is ultimately not so much for his peace of mind as for his piece of the action. Timothy Spall, Tony Goldwyn, Billy Connolly; directed by Edward Zwick. (2003) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.