Tom Cruise’s character in Edge of Tomorrow, which, as a film, gets its shit together hugely in its second half, is employed as a kind of spin doctor for the war and the army. He appears on TV to “sell” the war and to get people to enlist with the promise of heroism/glory etc. He gets called in to London to talk with the British General Guy about an invasion of France and the general tells him that he is going to appear on the front line himself to film “acts of heroism and valour”. Tom is understandably afraid about this because he is, in his own words, not a soldier, and doesn’t like the sight of blood or war. I mean, who would want to go to the front line if they’re not a soldier? The war is already going kind of badly because the enemy has taken basically all of Europe.

What annoys me about this scene though is that we’re meant to think of Tom as a complete pussy for not being brave and wanting to go to the front line to act as what is essentially a war journalist. It’s this whole fantasy of “oh look at the REAL soldiers who are super tough and how Tom is just a guy with nice teeth in a suit who is selling death”. But that’s not really a sustainable angle because Tom has already succeeded in recruiting a whole bunch of soldiers for the war. He is clearly pretty good at his job, and there’s no pretence in the media coverage that we see in the film of him as anything other than a “guy in a suit”. He’s using the language of advertising: “We fight, it’s what we do”, but other than that the “man up and be a soldier” angle doesn’t really work. He’s not lazy, he’s flying all over the place pushing the war. He’s sleeping in helicopters.

It’s not like every single person is a front line soldier anyway. What about the general himself? The nature of having military positions which aren’t soldiers is because there’s a lot of infrastructure around just having men on the ground. You need someone making decisions, and you need recruitment- Tom is in the business of recruitment, on the BBC and shit, and you’re gonna risk his life and happiness sending him to the front line? Do you have no-one else? You flew him in on a helicopter and had a whole greeting thing, and he’s the guy you’re gonna randomly treat like shit?

It makes this whole first bit of the film feel like another American dicks-out war hero fantasy that’s treading really cliché ground. I thought of Tom’s denial to take the front line position as entirely reasonable and quite polite. “I do what I do, you do what you do”, he says. It’s like the scriptwriters were purposefully trying to make his position super reasonable at the same time as making it a joke that he was a pussy. The general then says “oh that’s fine, because I’m sending you in with loads of soldiers so you’ll be safe”, which clearly isn’t the case. What if they all get slaughtered? A warzone is dangerous regardless of how many soldiers you’re with. And it’s worth remembering that this isn’t a plot point later- the general’s actual plan was to ship him off to war and then force him into the war using a piece of paper that says he’s a deserter and he has to fight.

So the general gives him a super manly staredown, and then things get dumb. The general guy (I never remember film names) is like “you’re under my command, I’m pulling rank” which is a super dickish way to treat someone. That’s not even how normal conversations work, let alone office discussions between people. Tom should report him for harassment or some shit. Maybe explain the situation reasonably and discuss it with him. You might even be able to get Tom to agree to it, especially if you treat him with respect. Then he’s all “you are dismissed”. I mean, it is the army, I suppose, so that sort of language is okay, but it’s still dickish and doesn’t really HELP the situation. I’m sure the general is busy but he’s clearly not THAT busy so he could’ve tried to be a bit nicer.

Then Tom makes a shit decision. He takes a few moments to think, then he THREATENS to destroy the General’s reputation using his media sway. There are so many problems here. Firstly, let’s look at his options that aren’t this. He can go, stay safe, and try and make it back in one piece. He can refuse politely or discuss it further with the general before insisting more strongly on the other candidates he suggested. He can quit his job. You can’t control human beings that aren’t in a job. This isn’t a best case scenario but it seems like a likely one- just refuse the whole thing. The general ends up acting illegally anyway but sticking in the confines of job-law would have been a good option. Tom could even explain why the whole idea is sort of bad anyway and why his earlier excuses were reasonable ones.

So the threat is stupid because it’s a specific and poor option, and because it’s aggressive, which, as mentioned earlier, is not how you get people to do things for you or be on your side. How sustainable an option is that? Also it seems like Tom has a job which depends on people setting him up. He gets like, invited on BBC to push recruitment. They’re not going to invite him on to disparage a main general in the war. The military press group isn’t going to request that Tom gets on air to disparage a main general. If he goes off track while live to talk shit about general-guy then they can just cut him off or never let him back on the air. He could go rogue completely and use his influence to talk shit, but by that time he’s lost the job he’s obviously trying to keep. It’s such a travesty plot point. Does he really expect that the general will look up, be like “oh well okay if you’re gonna do that then you don’t have to go” and then get on with his day? Like Tom will just leave and everything is normal? It’s a crazy can of shit-writing worms.

Also the general says “are you blackmailing me?” I’m almost certain that blackmailing depends on having compromising information and threatening to reveal it. Tom doesn’t have compromising information, he’s just threatening defamation. Both characters and the script writers don’t know what a word means.

Then he makes another mystifying decision. He RUNS. Why? Why? When the general says “arrest him”, which is another odd decision just because I don’t think anything illegal has happened, he MUST know he’s fucked. There’s no way he’s going to get through everyone. And where is he running to? To the helicopter, to be like “oh shit lift off!” The pilot will be like “why, and why are people chasing you?” and by that time they’ll be at the helicopter. Or he’s just going to become a fugitive from this point onwards, on the off chance he makes it out of the building? This is also a shit option. Just go quietly and see what happens now you’ve been arrested, then hire a fucking lawyer and get free because you WEREN’T ARRESTED FOR ANYTHING REAL. I mean, seriously, both characters are just making up reality here. The “oh it’s just a movie” defence will always be valid but when a movie is trying to portray real people and imitate somewhat real situations at least have something that’s just slightly believable. A lot of films don’t fall into these traps. And it’s not like I analysed the scene a million times, I just watched it once and the whole thing seemed stupid to me.

And it’s one of those things where when you put it together and watch it back with all the action shots and tense music the whole scene just appears as so ridiculous. A guy turns up on the pretence that he’s going to sell the general’s image, then he is ordered to do something, immediately chooses blackmail (not blackmail) as his best choice, which was a strange and extreme option, then runs away from being arrested, gets tasered and is then sent to war. Does no one fucking read scripts? Do none of the actors have a problem with this? Does no one stop for a SECOND, even in this otherwise pretty good film, to say “the entire premise of this scene and all the dialogue is fucking unbelievable?”

I’m gonna stop here because this is already unbearably long but there’s a lot more stupid in this film which I’m not gonna go into right now.

I’ll probably write another bit on some of the other stupidities but also on why some of it is good.

Love,

Alex