Tom Cruise

Apparently I'm one of the few people in this world who don't give a rat's rump if Tom Cruise is gay, straight, a Scientologist, married, divorced, jumping on people's couches, or whatever. Forget about rumors of his marrying Nicole Kidman as a dodge to cover his sexual preference. I think it's just a dodge to cover up the fact that he can't act his way out of a paper bag. Even if said paper bag were on fire.

And the thing is, he knows it. Which is how he's made a boatload of money and become an uber-celeb: by choosing roles that keep him within his very limited range.

Because Tom Cruise - entourage in tow, photographed more often than Britney Spears or any member of the British royal family, his star (and teeth) so big and bright that he can be seen with the naked eye from other planets, so "wonderful" that either the National Enquirer or People Magazine would be awash in material if they were to do a special issue on his "greatness" - reached his acting peak playing a teenager dancing in his underwear in Risky Business.

OK, maybe again, fully clothed, in Rain Man.

But ever since then, the most successful roles that Tom Cruise has had was when he was playing...Tom Cruise. You know the guy. That flashy guy with the swagger on the outside who eventually caves - to an autistic brother, to a child, to a woman, or, you know, morality - and becomes "a better man." And that's what made films like Top Gun, Jerry McGuire, The Color of Money, and Rain Man so successful - because Cruise was acting within his limitations. Writer and critic Dorothy Parker could have been talking about Cruise when she commented (in another context) that his range "ran the gamut from A to B."

Also, any generic action hero could have starred in Vanilla Sky, Minority Report, the Last Samurai or Mission: Impossible and all of its sequels. Stick Keanu Reeves or Vin Diesel in there and nobody would have noticed. And Cocktail was essentially Risky Business set in a bar.

When Cruise has chosen roles that require him to stretch beyond his safety net, he's fallen flat on his pretty face. I didn't buy him for a second as the vampire Lestat in Interview With The Vampire (despite author Anne Rice's full-page apology for doubting his talents). Nicole Kidman carried him in Far and Away and Eyes Wide Shut. Maybe this is why she decided to divorce him, and stop carrying him for good. And in The Firm, and Born on the Fourth of July. he just looked like he was trying too hard.

Yes, critics were whispering "Oscar" for Magnolia, and Cruise won some minor awards for Best Supporting Actor, but this was just another instance of Cruise playing Cruise, which is why he came off smelling like a rose.

It's a cliché that all actors secretly want to direct or produce or write. And now that Cruise is going to run United Artists Film Studio, he has his own chance to be behind the camera.

I'd vote that he stay there, and let the paparazzi chase someone with real talent. Or, you know, Paris Hilton.