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Jerry Maguire Customer Reviews (49 - 51 of 52 Reviews)

Good movie, in spite of itself
This movie has its problems. Tom Cruise is simply not credible in an adult role. Renee Zellweger apparently learned acting technique by watching daytime television. Cuba Gooding Jr is out of control and well over the top (if you buy the Special Edition, you can read the script and see how much he expanded his role). The spear carriers are cliche -- one actually introduces herself with "I'm her disapproving sister." The script itself is weak. Repeatedly, the characters are made to respond to situations that haven't been created on film, however real they may be to writer/director Cameron Crowe.

All of that aside, however, I really like "Jerry Maguire". It may not be great art but it has a great heart! The message is one of optimism, that you don't have to be a jerk but if you place your trust in another person, it will be returned. We see character after character making that leap of faith, and being rewarded for it. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

I must mention the splendid performances of Jay Mohr, as a rival sports agent, and Regina King, as a client's wife. They're the stars of a pretty dim cast.

Not bad...whenever you're not CRINGING!
Like "Vanilla Sky," Cameron Crowe's "Jerry Maguire" also tries to dispense some existential, quasi-Eastern wisdom...but with much more mixed results. Much of the movie truly stretches the viewer's credulity; we are often left wondering, "Is he serious? Now WHY in the world would he/she do THAT?" In other words, the characters are not well-developed enough to make their actions and decisions readily believable. These 2-dimensional cardboard characters also have an unfortunate habit of delivering painfully florid and verbose pseudo-philosophical mini-soliloquys out of nowhere.

Cruise is not really as well-chosen for this character as he was in "Vanilla Sky" either---here, he just tries WAY too hard, ridiculously overacting almost in every scene. His permanent, bread-and-butter Alpha-Male swagger never leaves him, even when he's supposed to be at rock-bottom, like at a scene when he shows up at Zelleger's house drunk after losing both his job and his fiance in the same day.

Then there is the romance between Cruise and Zelleger's characters, which is the main box-office draw of this film, and its most cringe-triggering device. This part of the script, even more so than the rest of the film, must've been directly written by a bunch of focus groups...it includes just about every abominably cheesy, tear-jerking, schmaltzy cliche in the book. Ruthlessly and shamelessly manipulative, it almost destroys the rest of the film, which is actually not so bad.

The Designated Irresistible Kid who plays Zelleger's son IS truly adorable and would've put Maculay Culkin out of a work had he been born about a decade earlier. Him, Zelleger and especially Cuba Gooding Jr. are the main saving graces of this decent but deeply compromised film. Hopefully after this box-office smash, Cameron Crowe will have the clout to go back to making REAL movies, not focus-group-candy like this one.

Love and Loyalty
"Without your love,
It's a honky-tonk parade.
Without your love,
It's a melody played
In a penny arcade.

"It's a Barnum and Bailey world,
Just as phony as it can be,
But it wouldn't be make believe,
If you believed in me."

E.Y. "Yip" Harburg's lyrics to the classic, Depression-era song he co-wrote with Harold Arlen, "Paper Moon," sum up Jerry Maguire, a movie about the redemptive power of love in a crooked world that is just for show.

"Jerry Maguire" (Tom Cruise) is a top agent for professional athletes, working for the world's biggest sports representation firm, a butt-kissing and back-stabbing world, where the word "love" gets tossed about as easily as cuss words. And yet, Jerry does have one endearing, enduring quality: Loyalty.

Late one night, Jerry has an epiphany, or as he puts it, he doesn't know if it was a "breakdown" or a "breakthrough." He types an inspiring "mission statement" on how agents ought to do their jobs. The mission statement does not have the intended effect, but it does inspire at least one person. (I'm being purposely vague, to avoid spoiling the story.)

"Dorothy Boyd" (Renee Zellweger) is an accountant at the firm, who is inspired by Jerry's words. She falls in love with Jerry, but does Jerry love her? Oh, and did I mention, that Dorothy is a "single mother"? Well, actually, she's a widow; calling her a "single mother" is one of the movie's intermittent pc tics. Dorothy's chubby, bright son, "Ray" (Jonathan Lipnicki), who appears to be about five years old, and has been starved for a man in his life, takes to Jerry immediately. The feeling is mutual.

(The other pc aspects involve a woman beating the hell out of Jerry, one character referring to a deaf relative as "hearing-impaired," and the conceit of having a black NFL player lecture his white agent on how to love a woman, and on how to respect a "single mother," a conceit which will be particularly jarring to anyone at all familiar with professional sports. At least the movie does have a sense of humor about feminism, and even a little about race, as the black player has Maguire shouting, "I love black people!")

"Rod Tidwell" (Cuba Gooding), whom Jerry represents, is an under-sized NFL wide receiver with an over-sized chip on his shoulder. This character gave America the phrase, "Show me the money!," which became ubiquitous for a few months.

Most of this two-hour-and-eighteen-minute movie consists of tightly framed, intimate scenes with either Cruise and Gooding or Cruise and Zellweger. "Intimate" means that the actors must carry the scene; there is no distraction to diffuse the drama or cover for poor performers. And as good as the scenes are with Zelleweger and Cruise, the ones with Cruise and Gooding are even more intense.

I'm not a Tom Cruise fan, but I have to give the Devil his due. He richly deserved his Oscar nomination as Jerry.

This was Renee Zellweger's breakthrough role, in which she displayed the winsome, spunky persona that has since become her calling card in movies such as Bridget Jones' Diary and Cold Mountain.

After Cuba Gooding won the Academy Award for best supporting actor as Rod Tidwell, I recall sitting in a Union Square coffee shop in Manhattan, and telling someone that Gooding only got the Oscar because he was black. A big, beefy, middle-aged black man in the next booth heard me and sighed loudly, to express his anger. (No, I hadn't yet seen the movie, but the odds were very much in my favor.) Well, I was wrong. Gooding's role is much meatier than a typical supporting role - almost a lead - and he makes the most of it.

But there are many other great players, too. And every role is exquisitely cast, particularly Bonnie Hunt as Dorothy's caustic, feminist, older sister, "Laurel," who hosts a support group of embittered, man-bashing, forty-something women, Regina King in the Alfre Woodard role as Tidwell's wife, "Marcee," and Jay Mohr as Jerry's slimy protege, "Bob Sugar." Beau Bridges and Kelly Preston also shine in smaller roles.

Jerry Maguire is not "high concept." There are no car crashes. There is lots of talk. Amazing talk. Director-screenwriter Cameron Crowe wrote one of the best original scripts of the past twenty years. He does here what he has developed a well-deserved reputation for: Showing the world behind the façade (see also Almost Famous) of an apparently glamorous but actually tawdry social milieu (ain't they all?). This movie is for grown-ups.

But Crowe choreographs scenes so well, whether involving a mob of people or just two, that they don't come off as "talky." (Besides, unless one is an action junkie, the feeling of "talkiness" is often the result of a bad script.)

And oh, the acting. The comparison that comes to mind, is Terms of Endearment, which was the quintessential domestic drama. When TOE came out in 1983, I recall a critic writing that it showcased the best acting you'd ever see in an American movie. That judgment was unfair to American movies; TOE showcases some of the best acting you'll ever see in a movie, period. As does Jerry Maguire. There is not a single clearly flubbed line or wasted scene in this entire movie.

The best thing I can say about Jerry Maguire, is that I liked it a lot the first time I saw it, and I loved it, the second time around.

The Critical Critic, February 26, 2004

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