As we learn in flashbacks, the massacres he's been forced to participate in have wreaked no small psychological havoc. Now a drunken side-show performer, he accepts with alacrity an offer to train the Japanese emperor's new army.

Unlike Master And Commander, another recent story of war and manly men, The Last Samurai features a satisfying love story, which should ensure it the widest possible audience.Ĭruise plays Captain Nathan Algren, a grizzled veteran of the American Civil War and the unrelenting massacre visited upon the hapless Native Americans that followed. The historical understanding of Meiji-era Japan is impeccable, as is the visual re-creation of this intensely conflicted period (so much so that, given Cruise's popularity there, the film should do as well in Japan as in the US). The epic battle scenes are brilliantly staged and edited, yet the filmmakers have understood that such cinematic fireworks function best in the service of a strong narrative and convincing characters, which are here in spades. Though its plot and structure, as well as it characters, sometimes perilously skirt cliche, the end result is a moving, gorgeously photographed opus with more than a little political and philosophical bite to it. Tom Cruise rides into the East in Warner Bros' stirring, beautifully mounted dramatic release, directed by Ed Zwick ( Glory, Legends Of The Fall), refreshingly set in 1870s Japan.

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