Taps (1981)
Tom plays a major badass in his second film. Hoorah.
Attention!
Taps was Tom’s first major role, and he plays a total badass. Tom had some laughs with the quick role in Endless Love, but fun time is over. Taps is packing some serious fire power, with Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn starring alongside Tom in this awesome retelling of the classic cadets-take-over-the-academy-and-shit-hits-the-fan tale.
TCP Rating—One and a half Mavericks
This movie starts off pretty slow, but it does feature some powerful performances from Tom and Sean Penn. Extra points for the final scene makes the final verdict one and a half Mavericks.
How you can watch
This one was tough. I had to order it on Amazon for about $8. If you want to borrow it, let me know.
Film Stats
Run Time: 2:06:23
The Color of Money: Taps grossed $35M at the box office, plus another $20.5M in video rentals. Yeah, rentals. Remember those?
Collateral: A few junior cadets, a local street tough, and a general all meet their maker before Tom manages to go down in a blaze of glory.
Endless Love: There are no chicks in this one, but hey, who needs ‘em, right? Plenty of man-boy love here between the General and his cadets.
Tom Stats
Role: Cadet Captain David Shawn
A Few Good Men: This is the first of many military-themed roles for Tom. He holds his own with Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn, although Penn steals the show with his powerful performance.
Top Gun: While everyone else is prancing around playing with their bugles, Tom struts around with M-16's and awesome one-liners like, “I’d like to take a grenade and shove it RIGHT UP THEIR ASSES!!” Atta boy, Tom!
Danger Zone
Tom picks up the .50 cal and goes ballistic. SUCH RAGE!
Help me, help you … avoid spoilers!
If you don’t want to know, then don’t read below.
Welcome to the Academy
It starts slow. Really slow. If you need a snack, now would be a good time. You don’t need the first 10, 15 minutes—you won’t miss anything. Oh, and yeah. It’s called Taps. So they’re gonna fucking play Taps. A lot.
Anyway, there’s a choir, or something, and some dude is rockin’ a man-purse and playing the bugle. It’s pretty depressing. Bunker Hill Academy is basically a high school frat house run by a creepy headmaster, the General, who stares at the cadets like he’s a Catholic priest. And he’s not against a little underage drinking. So that’s cool. Anyway, all these kids are training to get into West Point. Timothy Hutton is the Major, the cadet in charge of all the other cadets. Sean Penn and Tom are both seniors. They’re all staying at the Academy over the summer before starting their last year.
Tom starts off by flipping us the bird. What a badass. He sets up a really-not-at-all creepy parade in the new Major’s honor. What a guy! And he’s got a sweet red beret.
Bad News: The Academy Is Closing
They’re going to turn it into condos. Next year will be the last year for the Academy after over 100 years of service. Ballsy move by the General, announcing this in front of everyone at graduation. Could have just sent out an email. The General, though, he’s gonna fight this. Everyone’s all bummed out, and then …
Here Come Some Civilians To Fuck Things Up
Some locals come over to start shit with the cadets, and the cadets start kicking some ass. The General comes over to break things up, and some kid gets shot. General forgot there was a round in the chamber. Classic gun safety violation. Anyway, now the town is like, FUCK the Academy. It’s shutting down right the fuck now. The General is arrested and the cadets are scared and pissed off, so, naturally, …
The Cadets Take Over the Academy
The cadets decide to hide all the ammo and barricade the entrances to the Academy until city leaders meet with them to talk about keeping the place open. Everyone’s using super-huge walkie-talkies instead of cell phones. Awesome circa 1981.
OK, so then Tom starts to get evil. He starts firing his M16 after a beer run goes south. It looks like this:
Sean Penn shows a little emotion. He’s thinking they should just give up. Tom is not convinced. Here he is pumping some iron and looking unconvinced:
The Major is conflicted now that things are getting out of control. The movie actually has some good dialogue here. Sean Penn has the strongest performance. Too bad no one’s gonna listen to him.
And the Adults Get Fucking Creepy
Now the older, wiser parents and local authorities come and try to smooth it all over—by slowly circling the school in the middle of the night with a bullhorn, with moms and dads reading letters to their kids about how they made the favorite meals, and there are cookies waiting as soon as they give up. The adults in this film are twisted, and it only gets worse.
After discussions with the Major remain unproductive, the local Guard commander decides to, oh hell, just blow the fucking gates up with a tank. Apparently the governor is sick of this shit being on CNN 24/7.
PLOT BREAK: Out of nowhere, they get the one black cadet to get himself lit on fire in the boiler room. Wow, what are the chances it was the one black kid? Where the hell did this scene come from? Anyway …
The tank is called off but Sean Penn is giving up. Some other kids start to give up too, but then the FUCKING ADULTS shoot the two youngest cadets as they try to turn themselves in. Nice work, parents!
OK, so then there’s a lot of Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn back and forth, yadda yadda yadda, they decide it’s over …
And Now We Can All Go Home and Just Forget This Ever Hap . . .
Nope
Tom ain’t finished yet. He’s in full crazy mode, and now he’s got the 50 cal.
It’s beautiful, man, BEAUTIFUL!!!—Tom
Tom’s first death scene!! Nice.
Annnnd, that’s it!
Oh, and they’re still gonna shut down the school.
Oh, and Timothy Hutton’s dead, too.
OK, anyway—great work, Tom!
About The Tom Cruise Project
As with any great idea, this one started over beers. I’m at a bar and my buddy tells me he’s watching Tom Cruise movies. Not some. All. Every Tom Cruise movie in existence, in chronological order. Whoah. Just the sound of that, right? So I stole the idea. I know, what a dick.
Anyway, I’m gonna watch ‘em all and tell you what I think. That was my idea, this blog—The Tom Cruise Project. Tom’s 40th film will arrive this year, so this is going to be quite a journey.
You can drop comments onto any paragraph in any of the posts by clicking on the green box that appears to the right. They won’t be public until I allow them, but write anything you want. I won’t be heavy on the censor.
I’ll see you at the Top Gun party.
