Review

by Natacha V

awful

Hollywood has a long history of arrogantly making bad remakes of 'foreign' films but this has to rank as one of the worst. Tom Cruise does his usual impersonation of, well, Tom Cruise in this tale of successful businessman whose life takes a downward turn after a jealous lover runs him off a bridge, disfiguring his beautiful face. Cruise is slightly grating as usual but it's director Cameron Crowe who must shoulder the blame for this mess of a film. Never one to trust his audience's ability to decipher a scene Crowe smothers every scene with pop music, whilst littering the script with pop culture references in a classic example of 'tedious middle-aged man desperately trying to prove how cool he is' syndrome. Add this to one of the most gob-smackingly cop-out endings ever (of course, 'it was all a dream...') and you're left with a smug, self-aware, UTTERLY EMPTY waste of celluloid.