August 04, 2019

A perfect pairing of sound & vision - Tom Cruise in The Color of Money


What do you get if you add Martin Scorsese, Tom Cruise and some Soho based Werewolves? You get magic. Absolute magic. The Color Of Money is far from the best work either of them have done but one moment in it works spectacularly.

Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) is a former pool hustler who's lost the taste for playing but who still loves the thrill of the short con. One night he sees Vincent Lauria (Tom Cruise) on the make and he reminds him so much of his former self that it hurts. 


Isn't that just a brilliant moment. A director and star working together in sublime unison. Scorsese's roving steadicam and his masterful way with music. Warren Zevon's oddly unsettling Werewolves Of London blasting out. Cruise in full on 80's arrogant mode. The smile that made him famous, the Bruce Lee moves, the swagger. The fact that you want to dig the head off him while secretly wishing you were that cool. The action and the camera moving perfectly in time with the music. Vincent's impeccably timed quoting of the line "and his hair was perfect" while loving his own mane. That nearly one minute long continuous take of Cruise genuinely polishing off the last 5 balls in a game of nine ball. God only knows how many takes it took them to do that. The confidence needed to pull off a scene like this is immense and we lucky viewers get the pay off.

Pairings of sound & music don't get much better than this one.

Previous pairings

Rules Of Attraction
Kickboxer                                  
Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)