Tom Cruise has spent the last few weeks – arguably the last few years – making the case that, at least under certain circumstances, he could qualify as the biggest movie star in the world. Twenty years ago, merely on the cusp of 40, this condition didn’t require such strenuous evidence. Cruise made movies, and, for the most part, audiences showed up; it had become almost routine. This is was why he could star in a spectacular science-fiction picture like Minority Report without attracting too much fuss. Yes, the movie was a hit. No, in the US it didn’t outgross Scooby-Doo, released a week earlier. No, this fact didn’t cast doubt on Cruise’s bankability. He had attained such stopwatch dependability that his appearance in a masterpiece seemed almost beside the point.
In fact, Minority Report depends on Cruise’s certainty – his ability to imbue a character with absolute conviction, even if doubt nags at him from somewhere deep inside. He plays John Anderton, a police chief in a futuristic Washington DC that has tried out a program called Pre-Crime. The organization taps into the visions of three “pre-cogs” to pinpoint the names and locations of future murders, arresting and convicting offenders before a crime is actually committed. Anderton is a fervent believer in the process because his young son Sean was kidnapped, and presumably killed, years earlier. Despite his regrets, Cruise is still playing a hotshot of sorts; driven by his belief in the program, Anderton always gets his man.
