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I really liked it.
Tom Cruise had slipped way down my list after "Minority Report," but "Last Samurai" and "Collateral" have launched him back up to his post-"Few Good Men" heights in my mind.
The direction was incredible, and Jamie Foxx gave easily the best performance of his career. After years of really disliking everything he's been in, he is growing on me, and I'm actually looking forward to "Ray."
The movie is intense, all the bit actors (Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem, Bruce McGill, Jada Pinkett, etc.) do very good jobs with what are essentially fractions of a script dominated by Cruise and Foxx. The music sets the stage so well that, after seeing the movie, I had to run right out and buy the soundtrack.
It's very funny at times and hard to watch at others. The mark of a great thriller, in my opinion, is its ability to break up the intensity with a moment of levity so that the intensity packs more of a punch. Mann accomplishes this so well.
I'd give it a very high eight out of ten, bordering on a nine. Could have been a ten with some tweaks to the third act.
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