The Last Samurai

I hold the opinion that an individual should do one thing in Life: The best he can.

Not the best that can be done. The best a given individual can do.

There is, of course, explanation, justification, and rationale for this otherwise humble opinion and why I hold to it: Because I also believe those who achieve greatness, perhaps even immortality, do so not because of something too easily called 'genius' but because, day in and day out, they do one thing: They do the best they can.

Now some, when they hear all this, posture and pontificate, and suggest that my beliefs are--for lack of a more diplomatic term or phrase--'wrongheaded'. According to these all-knowing and ever-wise sages the truth is doing the best one can do is not enough. One must constantly strive to achieve and finally attain the best that can be done, and when one does this then, and only then, can they be considered truly great.

Now such a matter could easily and quickly be reduced to a philosophical diatribe, with no solution found finally. I suggest, instead, doing what I have suggested, and find, finally, success.

If you need proof this can and does work look no further than the film "The Last Samurai", starring Tom Cruise. Here is a film that from day one did the best it could and in the end resulted in a cinematic effort that is nothing less than a certain masterpiece.

Admittedly, this film was no doubt constructed with Cruise in mind, and it was tailored accordingly to showcase him. But all of this is incidential and gloss. Cruise, surprisingly, does more than just his routine (albeit cliched) pretty-boy-as-hero. Here he plays the role as he has not played a role since "Born On The 4th Of July".

"The Last Samurai" is a story of two warriors whose respective cultures and societies make them alien to one another, but whose morals and ethics, values and beliefs eventually make them comrades-in-arms and friends.

As noted Tom Cruise stars, as a war-weary Civil War veteran. Alongside him is Ken Watanabe, as a proud Samurai. Separately these two are proud fighters. Together they are humans.

Cruise is Nathan Algren, a war hero, decorated much, who, with the war in his past, lives in the past, and finds his likely future at the bottom of a whiskey bottle. He is hired by American interests, who are providing mercenaries to build and train an army for the sitting Japanese emperor, who wants to take his country into the then-modern world. Of course, if he does so he faces a rebellion by the samurai.

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