Mission Impossible 7: What makes Tom Cruise the coolest star in the world?

If you have seen Tom Cruise’s heartstopping stunts in the new Mission Impossible film you would know he is only getting better with age. Cruise stopped being a human being long ago — he is now a metaphor for male beauty and professional excellence. He manages to shine brighter with every film as one of the biggest action heroes the world has ever seen.

Cut to ‘India’s Cruise’ Salman Khan. When and why did he stop growing? How could he come to something as appalling as Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan? That fake hair extension, that pseudo-swag….Seriously? What makes Salman so distant in vision and aesthetics from Cruise?

Besides the fact that most of his stunts are now performed by a double, Salman has stopped growing as an actor and artist. His coterie has cordoned him from reality. They tell him whatever he wants to hear. This is why his cinema has become stagnant in Bollywood. The affiliation to reality, the answer to the question ‘What does the audience’ want is out of Salman’s reach.

Cruise, on the other hand, is a curious child constantly in search of new adventures. When you interview him he asks you a dozen questions in five minutes. He wants to know everything about you. He doesn’t want to talk about himself. During the five minutes he has with the interviewer, he wants to broaden his horizon by five minutes.

Cruise is a sucker for danger. He wants to take that risk of going to the edge repeatedly, both literally and symbolically. He will continue to grow through the eighth, ninth, tenth and probably eleventh chapters of the Mission Impossible franchise. Put in a nutshell, nothing is impossible for the Mission Impossible star.

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 is the most riveting film in the series in recent years. It is probably the best Mission Impossible film ever, during the same year that Salman Khan delivered probably the worst film of his career. No, he is not India’s Tom Cruise — there cannot be another Tom Cruise!

Would they please finally give Cruise the Oscar? It’s high time he is acknowledged as the most successful celluloid star of all time. Even our very own Pathaan, and now Jawan, Shah Rukh Khan would agree.