I know a lot of people are not going to agree with me on this, but I think Tom Cruise is a terrible actor. I watched Collateral. Despite Cruise really stinking it up, I thought it was suspenseful. I liked Michael Mann’s other movies like Manhunter, Heat and The Insider. He makes LA look ethereal and the texture of his films comes off really saturated and glowing. Even when there’s tons of violence in some of his movies, he still manages to piece the picture gracefully. I’m not mad at him. I can understand why he casted cash cow Tom Cruise.

But I can’t picture him as a villain, or a hitman for that matter. He doesn’t have that much range and when he’s going for emotion, it’s just a bad case of overacting. Cruise reads his lines like he’s rattling off his “to do” list. He’s got no soul. There’s a really painful part where he’s trying to “explain jazz music” to Jamie Foxx’s character. I couldn’t help but laugh, it was so unconvincing when he was talking about Dexter Gordon and Miles Davis. “You gotta learn to listen behind the notes…” and then he starts snapping his fingers “…it’s all about improvisation.”

Dude is so overrated.