Yar, you be here: Jerry Maguire (Special Edition) > Customer Reviews

Jerry Maguire (Special Edition) Customer Reviews (19 - 21 of 53 Reviews)

You had me at "hello"
Jerry, a sports agent awakens one evening with a bad case of scruples. Suddenly, the life of a sports agent lacks integrity and honor and must be changed. His life seems empty and he must take steps to fill it. But after he puts his thoughts on paper, is fired from his job and all of his relationships crash and burn. All except for Dorothy, a single mother who can also use a steady relationship.

Writer/Director Cameron Crowe (ALMOST FAMOUS) constructs a solid film with something for everyone in JERRY MAGUIRE. It is a romantic comedy with elements of a sports film. Well, sports acts only as a backdrop. This, like other Crowe films SAY ANYTHING and SINGLES focuses on relationships, foremost the one between Jerry and Dorothy. Tom Cruise carries the film nicely as Jerry, but it is the others in his life that make this film sing. Renée Zellweger is charming and believable as Dorothy. She is an actress who can say more with silence than most can with paragraphs of dialogue. Jonathan Lipnicki plays her scene-stealing son. Guaranteed to be cute, he will definitely have a huge fan club. But, there will probably an even larger group of detractors who are out for blood. With boundless energy, Cuba Gooding, Jr plays Jerry's only loyal client Rod Tidwell and received an Oscar for his work.

But, the true star of this film is Cameron Crowe who again shows he has a knack for attractive characters and dialogue. Like most films, there are some strange decisions. Early in the film Jerry is described as someone who cannot be alone, that he must always be in a relationship. But rather than accomplishing independence to prove the nay Sayers wrong, he jumps right into a relationship. Well, at least it is a nice relationship. Maybe they should have described him as someone who has to be alone for the growth to be more palpable when he commits.

Still, it is a great date film with a lot of energies and subtleties. This early DVD release has no extra material and only Spanish subtitles. But, the video is remastered well and the audio is sufficiently transferred. If you get one thing out of JERRY MAGUIRE it is...

Show me the money!


Much more than just another romantic comedy
Well, I'm incredibly late to the Jerry Maguire party, but I'm glad I finally made it. I thought this was just a comedy, but I should have known better because laughs alone usually don't generate the kind of success this movie enjoyed. This is a wonderful, feel-good movie with a surprisingly effective emotional payoff. Tom Cruise is great, Cuba Gooding, Jr., steals every scene he's in, and that Renee Zellweger is nothing short of perfect. They even threw in a clip of McGarrett on Hawaii Five-O and sent me away with Bob Dylan singing over the credits - in my book, that's going above and beyond the call of duty. And I never tire of seeing someone break away from the cynicism of big business and actually put some heart back into an increasingly heartless way of life.

Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) is, of course, a bigshot sports agent who has it all - then loses it all. For some inexplicable reason, he develops a conscience late one night, puts together this huge "mission statement" all about reducing the number of clients and giving those remaining the genuine personal touch, and sends it to everyone in the company. With a schlep of a boss like Bob Sugar (the always annoying Jay Mohr), his days with the company are, not surprisingly, numbered. He vows to start his own company, desperately trying to hold on to the clients he has been representing - but all he ends up taking with him are outrageous Cardinals wide receiver Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) and Dorothy Boyd (Renee Zellweger), an accountant who was truly inspired by what he had written. It doesn't seem like much, but he really has all he will ever need - he just doesn't realize it until the end of the movie.

Life on his own is quite a struggle, especially after he breaks up with his vicious fiancée (Kelly Preston), and I know it must be truly demoralizing to be defeated time and time again by Jay Mohr. Rod Tidwell, a great player who doesn't get the notice (or money) he thinks he deserves, stays loyal to him, though, for rather inexplicable reasons - even after Maguire fails to get him the kind of big money he is looking for in a new contract. Dorothy also stays with him, and Maguire grows increasingly close to her and her little boy Ray (Jonathan Lipnicki). There's love in the air, and Maguire's famous problem with emotional intimacy makes what should be the simplest thing in the world immensely complicated. We see a lot of Maguire at his worst - double-crossed, drunk, beaten up, wallowing in self-pity. He never gives up, though, and that's what's important. I find it a little problematic that he did not apply the principles of his "mission statement" to the way he lived his life, but - in his defense - guys tend to be pretty dense about this kind of thing (and would that we all had a Dorothy to help us see the light).

There's a wonderful cast on display here, with uncommonly meaningful secondary characters: there's little Ray, of course, but Dorothy's bitter yet loving sister Laurel (Bonnie Hunt) and Rod Tidwell's wife Marcee (Regina King) really do lay claim to a commanding presence in the story. You can also make a little game of spotting all of the sports personalities that make cameos (usually silent ones, thankfully) in the film.

This isn't a comedy; it's a serious story that just happens to feature a lot of laughs. It's a commentary on the depersonalization of business, a complicated yet wonderfully sweet love story, and a movie with a surprisingly big heart. And I love Renee Zellweger. As far as I'm concerned, she - not Tom Cruise - was the star of this film.

This DVD COMPLETES my collection
This is probably my favorite Tom Cruise film. I love that even though Cruise is undoubtedly the star of the movie (the title of the movie?!?), the greatness of the film didn't depend on his star power. The movie got a great supporting cast from Renee Zellweger to Cuba Gooding Jr., the movie's got a great screenplay ("Show me the money!!!" "You complete me"... "You had me at hello") that is amusing and funny and perceptive and intelligent without being pushy. I love that the characters are eloquent but knows its boundaries and know that a simple glance or close up or smirk says it all. In short the screenplay knows when to talk and when to shut up!

I also love the music used in the movie, I swear every time I hear "Free Falling" I can just picture Tom Cruise singing his lungs out or the Secret Garden by Springsteen, which is another song that I associate with the movie And of course there are the great performances by the entire cast. Cruise did a great job playing the character, it's fun seeing him play a loser for a change. This is one of his best performances. Renee Zellweger in her breakthrough role was radiant. Even though there's no doubt she's grown as an actress (from Chicago to Cold Mountain), I miss the understated, quiet effervescence and just vulnerability she showed in this movie (also in One True Thing). Cuba Gooding Jr the scene stealer himself, was just great. I especially like the scenes where he's making fun of Jerry. All of those things were used by Cameron Crowe to create this wonderful film.

In the DVD, there's a great extra, a video commentary. It's the normal commentary that we know except that there's another screen where we can see the speakers (Cruise, Zellweger, Gooding, Crowe). There's a small box at the bottom of the screen where we see the movie the way they see them. That was just innovative and very fun to watch, I wonder why others don't adopt this kind of commentary. This would especially work with "fun" films (Clueless, Friends!!).

Grade: A

Previous Page

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Next Page