Tom Cruise has constructed a profession enjoying males who discover themselves in more and more harmful conditions, whether or not by alternative or by sheer dangerous luck. From dangling off a skyscraper in Mission: Unattainable – Ghost Protocol to working for his life in Warfare of the Worlds to navigating the more and more weird occasions of Eyes Large Shut, Cruise is at all times at his greatest when the stakes are excessive and the folks round him can’t be trusted. His newest, Digger, is one other reminder that there’s not often a uninteresting second when Cruise is within the lead.
Nevertheless, a few of his greatest work got here lengthy earlier than he was hanging off airplanes and outrunning explosions, again when he was constructing a popularity as one in all Hollywood’s most compelling main males. Among the many many wonderful movies in Cruise’s early profession, The Agency deserves a spot close to the highest of the checklist. Directed by Sydney Pollack and based mostly on John Grisham’s bestselling 1991 novel, the authorized thriller finds Cruise enjoying a younger lawyer whose dream job shortly turns right into a waking nightmare. It’s a unique sort of Cruise film by immediately’s requirements, buying and selling globe-trotting spectacle for mounting paranoia, however The Agency is price trying out now that it is streaming on Paramount Plus.
The story follows Mitch McDeere (Cruise), a superb Harvard Legislation Faculty graduate who accepts a suggestion from a prestigious Memphis legislation agency with a suspiciously beneficiant compensation package deal. The agency offers him with a home, a luxurious automotive, and a degree of monetary safety that appears nearly too good to cross up. His spouse, Abby (Jeanne Tripplehorn), is understandably thrilled with their new life, and Mitch has each motive to consider he’s lastly made it.
There’s only one drawback: The agency has a number of secrets and techniques it might fairly maintain buried. After studying that a number of different attorneys have died beneath mysterious circumstances, Mitch begins to suspect his employers are concerned in one thing way more sinister than questionable authorized practices. Quickly sufficient, he finds himself caught between the FBI, which desires his assist bringing the agency down, and the highly effective individuals who have made it clear that getting out isn’t an choice.
The Agency is best in the way it slowly reveals to Mitch the error he’s remodeled the primary two acts. This isn’t a case of a lawyer stumbling right into a harmful state of affairs and instantly understanding the right way to get out of it. Mitch is formidable, a little bit boastful, and satisfied that his schooling and intelligence will carry him by way of nearly something. Cruise performs him with simply sufficient confidence to make his eventual panic plausible, and​​ the movie will get loads of mileage out of watching that confidence slowly disappear.
The Value of Compromise
Whereas Cruise positively steals many of the limelight, Gene Hackman’s Avery Tolar, the veteran legal professional assigned to mentor Mitch, is equally spellbinding. Hackman’s preliminary pleasant demeanor conceals a person who has discovered to stay with some deeply uncomfortable compromises. A primary instance happens throughout their enterprise journey to the Cayman Islands, the place Avery sits with Mitch at an out of doors resort bar. Beneath the nice and cozy tropical daylight and easygoing banter, Avery drops his polished facade to supply a chillingly frank warning concerning the inescapable grip of the agency, capturing the tragic disillusionment of a person who traded his soul for luxurious way back.
There’s a motive The Agency turned such a serious hit within the first place. Pollack understands that the scariest factor about Mitch’s predicament isn’t essentially the specter of violence, however the truth that the agency has embedded itself into each nook of his life. His home, his marriage, his profession, and his monetary future are all tied to a corporation that has no intention of letting him stroll away scot-free. Based mostly on Grisham’s novel, the film streamlines among the guide’s extra difficult authorized machinations, nevertheless it retains the central enchantment of watching an peculiar skilled uncover that the system he trusted is working in opposition to him. The supporting solid helps, too, with Ed Harris, Hal Holbrook, and Wilford Brimley including to the sense that Mitch is surrounded by individuals who know significantly greater than they’re keen to confess.
At two and a half hours, The Agency is hardly a fast watch, and a few of its plotting will get tangled within the particulars. However Cruise’s efficiency and Pollack’s regular course maintain the story transferring, even when the authorized maneuvering threatens to overwhelm the suspense. It captures a specific second in Cruise’s profession, when he was nonetheless proving himself as a dramatic actor able to carrying a sprawling Hollywood thriller with out counting on the bodily spectacle that will later outline his greatest blockbusters.
Should you’re on the lookout for a terrific Tom Cruise film to get misplaced on this weekend that isn’t Digger, The Agency is nicely price your time.
The Agency is streaming on Paramount Plus. It is also on Peacock and HBO Max by way of the top of October.