Hollywood's last remaining star

Hint: he has many a mission under his belt

SLOUGH, ENGLAND:

In a game of word association, the word 'mission' will make you think of two things.

The first is the word 'impossible'. This will especially be true if you have recently had dealings with, say, a stubborn builder or tried to prise your hard-earned degree out of the unrelenting grip of your university – but will also be true if you are an unabashed lover of action films. Continuing to pull at this thread, the second thing you will think of, naturally, will be a certain small cult-loving but irritatingly good-looking man proudly carrying the torch of Hollywood's last remaining bastian of stardust. And yes, of course, you will have worked out by now that this means Tom Cruise.

Leading man with a mission

Note that we do not mean Ethan Hunt, who, if we wish to be pedantic, is really the individual responsible for undertaking all these falsely advertised impossible missions. It is definitely Cruise himself who springs to mind, rather than his alter ego. As an aside, despite all his abseiling from Dubai skyscrapers and various wearying sky-dives, we are forced to conclude that these missions of his are perhaps not as impossible as we have been led to believe, with an eighth one – The Final Reckoning – due in May.

Just how final will this final reckoning be? Can we finally bid a firm farewell to this daring, unflinching, nimble, acrobatic spy? Cruise (or Ethan) beseeches you to consider trusting him 'one last time' in the trailer. However, with the right technology, people would probably be happy to have Cruise cryogenically frozen so that good old Ethan can be summoned back long after his eventual demise.

That is how much of a bigshot Cruise is. If James Bond is the dictionary definition of a spy (sorry, Ethan), Cruise is the ultimate film star. To put it another way, Marvel lovers flock to Marvel films more for Iron Man and Captain America, and less for Robert Downey Jr and Chris Pratt. Not content with this line of logic at all, Mission: Impossible fans put up with ludicrous plotlines because of their undying love for Tom Cruise and less for Ethan Hunt.

Like Helen of Troy was the face that launched a thousand ships, Cruise is the face that powers the global box office. His height may be a personal sore spot – a police officer tells The Express Tribune that when he once met Cruise during an event at Windsor Castle, he (Cruise) refused to have a selfie taken unless the camera angle made him appear taller – but the vertically challenged will be pleased to know that shortness is no barrier to film greatness if one has the right face and the right films. Whether it is the first Top Gun (1986) or its sequel 36 years later, Cruise's name in a cast list is the answer to a film studio's prayers.

The action dunce may be hazy on Cruise's numerous missions, but the action aficionado does not care how many identical adventures he embarks on. Nor does this action lover care that Cruise has never won an Oscar (although we must concede at this point that he has been nominated four times). Thanks to his mania for perfecting his own stunts and a face and hairline that have both studiously ignored the laws of ageing, so sturdy is Cruise's star power that even his most questionable batch of films (Vanilla Sky, Tropic Thunder) had people faithfully attending screenings despite some exceedingly mixed reviews from critics. He is the Caucasian equivalent of Shah Rukh Khan. SRK's comeback film Pathaan yanked viewers cinema-ward like the gravitational pull of a large planet; in the same vein, Cruise's Top Gun sequel, Top Gun Maverick – released 36 years after the original – beckoned devoted Cruise fans, who all rose to the call of duty in unquestioning faith and propelled Maverick to box office success. In short: wherever he does, whatever he does, and however long he has been away from screens, fans will always clamour for Cruise.

The Cruise control

The real question is: why? What has Cruise got that, say, his blond counterpart Brad Pitt lacks? Why are people still so doggedly obsessed with a man who once nearly wrecked Oprah's sofa in a fit of emotion on television and repelled two wives? Neither Nicole Kidman nor Katie Holmes have left Cruise's husband skills a glowing review. So why all this hero worship for this Scientologist, the biggest billboard for a cult rife with stories of abuse, heartbreak and harassment?

For those who remain on the fence about Scientology and think it is Cruise's own business, you can let actor and former member Leah Remini (the 'queen' half of the '90s sitcom The King of Queens) open your eyes. Remini was the brainchild behind the documentary series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath (2016-2019), where she interviewed former members like herself to publicise their experiences. In a statement she gave about her project at the time, Remini said, "I hope to shed light on information that makes the world aware of what is really going on and encourages others to speak up so the abuses can be ended forever. I hope that people who have left now feel they have a safe place to go. I hope others who have also experienced abuse will come forward and help us to do something about it."

Presumably because someone in his PR department advised against it, ever since 2008, Cruise keeps quiet about his private life, be it the women he is seeing or the cults he subscribes to. But just because he wishes you would bury your head in the sand does not detract from his love for Scientology.

Maybe that is Cruise's final secret to stardom: keeping his mouth shut. We need only look at Pitt's unfortunate instances of his personal life leaking into the rest of the world. No amount of beautiful hair can spare him the wrath of Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie fans, even though, unlike Cruise, he has never been involved in a brainwashing organisation.

Staying quiet was a lesson Cruise learned early on. In addition to flaunting age-defying looks and continuing with an exhausting workout routine for the stunts his fans so adore, Cruise guards his private life fiercely. Unlike his peers, Cruise's social media accounts are strictly professional with no allusions to his beliefs. He is not about to let you get sidetracked with the fact that a judge granted Holmes sole custody of the daughter he shares with her, nor that the 'church' that he identifies with was able to provide three seasons' worth of material for Remini's show. Instead, he wants you to focus on all the hard work he puts into stunts involving trains and helicopters.

And so, like a baby with a rattle, fans lost in his thrall allow themselves to be wooed by trains and helicopters. The love for Hollywood's last star continues to burn like the sun – and cult or no cult, if he keeps doing what he is doing, it is unlikely to ever wither away.