Really, I didn’t want to see Knight and Day. The cinema had a slew of other, better movies — The Secret in Their Eyes, The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo, Toy Story 3 — and here I was, buying a ticket to the latest Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz vehicle like some kind of Us Weekly tool. But last October, when I still worked in the vicinity of Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood, my former co-workers and I watched a scene from Knight and Day being filmed in the parking lot behind our building (here). If that had been all, I would have waited for it on DVD, but later that week, I shared an amazing, deeply personal moment with Tom Cruise as they filmed a car chase scene on a particularly long highway on-ramp: Tom waved and smiled directly at me (here). Based on that brief but intense moment that Tom and I shared, I vowed that this movie “looks like the dumbest movie ever but I’m seeing it anyway.”
“Dumbest movie ever?” Actually, no. It was an international comedy-thriller-action-adventure romp with lots of scenic, sophisticated… um, romping. There are planes, trains, boats, buses, and automobiles. No sex, but a staggering body count and more than a few over-the-top action scenes, in which Tom and Cameron dodge literally hundreds of bullets while simultaneously flirting. Heck, there’s a reason why these people are movie stars. I watched them act ridiculous for almost two hours and I never once glanced at the clock. I was too busy getting lost in Cameron’s bluer-than-blue eyes and Tom’s rugged, sprightly mouth.
I can pinpoint the exact scene they were filming when Tom Cruise waved to me. That alone was enough to thrill me. “He’s getting paid millions to flirt with Cameron on the screen, but between takes, he’s waving to me on his own volition,” I thought, only half-self-mocking.
The movie’s plot was beyond inane — repeated ridiculous contrivances involving world domination or something. Don’t bother to wonder why or how. Only the who really matters. And if you live in Boston, the where is pretty darn entertaining. Who hasn’t driven through the Big Dig tunnels and wondered how a high-speed car chase would play out… or how it looks when cars are mired in 20 mph traffic gridlock?
