wildyams

This is a little reminiscent of the Harrison Ford Giving Everyone the Finger thing, but I was thinking about it and Tom Cruise has something he tends to do in most movies too. Now this is different from Matt's notorious (and accurate) theory about how Tom Cruise's characters generally follow a formula in which Tom Cruise plays a badass who suffers a setback and emerges as an even bigger badass, so don't confuse the two. It just seems to me that in just about every movie he's in, Tom Cruise goes crazy.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna do what you all think I'm gonna do, which is, you know, FLIP OUT!" - Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire

Actually, turns out that he does flip out quite often. Now I haven't seen all of his movies, and for some of them that I have seen, either it's been a long time or I just don't know them that well, so I may need a little help putting a list together, but here are to my recollection scenes where Tom Cruise has gone nuts:

- Collateral - At the scene in Club Fever when he attacks the security guard from behind by breaking his neck, then stomping on him and flexing while straining his neck muscles for the camera.

- The Last Samurai - I haven't seen this one, but he looks like he's going nuts on the poster

- Minority Report - When he gets eyescanned in the bathtub before his new eyes are supposed to see any light he freaks out pretty bad, lots of moaning and straining.

- Vanilla Sky - When the doctors give him the mask and tell him it's a "prosthetic face shield", Tom jumps up and down while yelling "Good. Because for a minute there, I thought we were talking about A FUCKING MASK!"

- Mission: Impossible II - I saw this once and blocked it out of my memory as much as I can, although he did flirt with a girl while ramming his car into hers on a mountain road, if that counts.

- Magnolia - Either during his "respect the cock" speech or when he tears up at the bed of his dying father.

- Eyes Wide Shut - Near the end of the movie when Tom comes home to find his supposedly lost mask sitting on the pillow next to his wife, he completely breaks down

- Jerry Maguire - Four words: Show me the money.

- Mission: Impossible - Almost the whole scene on the TGV in the tunnel, culminating with when he yelled "Red light, green light!" then blew up the helicopter with chewing gum.

- Interview with the Vampire - When he says to Brad Pitt "Kill them swiftly if you will, but do it, for do not doubt, you are a killer!"

- The Firm - I haven't seen this in a long time and don't remember many specifics about it, but I know he was amped up a lot while running from the mafia or the feds or while chasing after his wife. If that's not good enough then maybe at the end when he tells Ed Harris "YOU don't run me, and THEY don't run me!"

- Few Good Men - Four words: "I want the truth!"

- Far and Away - Thankfully (from what I hear), I never saw this one.

- Days of Thunder - When he confronts Michael Rooker about not going to see the doctor for his memory loss and he hits his pool table with a baseball bat and yells "We can fix it there, or we can fix it right here! Now what's it gonna be!"

- Born on the Fourth of July - When his mom tells him not to say "penis" in the house and he yells at her "Penis! Penis! Big fucking erect penis, ma!"

- Rain Man - You can find any number of places in this movie where Tom Cruise loses it, but my favorite is when Ray tells him he has to buy his underwear at K-Mart and Cruise's response is "What difference does it make where you buy underwear? What difference does it make? Underwear is underwear! It is underwear wherever you buy it!"

- Cocktail - When he tears up Mr. Mooney's check after he tried to buy him off from pursuing his daughter, and they have to fight a bellhop to get out of the apartment.

- The Color of Money - When Paul Newman gives him the rest of his money in the stairwell and Cruise tells him "You can keep your fucking money, pal." Then he kicks the pool cue down the stairs and tears off a handrail and storms out the door.

- Top Gun - When the guy who played Theo in Die Hard tells Cruise he coulda had him and Cruise drops his gear and grabs him and says "I will fire when I am goddamn good and ready! You got that!"

- Legend - I never saw this

- All the Right Moves - I never saw this

- Risky Business - The whole scene when he calls Booger on the phone to come over cause the she-male hooker he called has shown up at Cruise's house, and Booger tells him he's not coming over, or when he calls Joey Pants an "a-hole" on the phone and gets hung up on.

- Losin' It - I never saw this

- The Outsiders - I haven't seen this in so long I don't remember much at all about this, but odds are Cruise got in a rumble at some point with the Socias.

- Taps - Cruise probably goes more nuts at the end of this movie than at any point in his career when he is mowing down people with a machine gun while yelling "It's beautiful man!"

- Endless Love - I never saw this

If you have any suggestions for better scenes where Cruise flips out, or have seen the movies I haven't and can contribute a good scene, or if you have any good pictures of Cruise going nuts, by all means please leave a comment adding to the list.