I find old Tom Cruise movies hilarious. And I don't think I'm alone in that. I stumbled across this one when I was perusing my dead uncle's video collection, and knew I was on to something once the cheesy music started pumping and Tom Cruise was smirking confidently.You know, I don't think Tom Cruise is all that sexy. He looks okay now, but in the eighties he was just plain old funny looking. Extreme eyebrows, gigantic nose, and hair coiffed so perfectly that it becomes a joke in and of itself.
In "Cocktail," Cruise plays a superstar bartender who's always looking to make his first million. The worst thing I can possibly say about this movie is that it doesn't buck Cruise's character for being shallow and materialistic--it rewards him with a happy ending.
Cruise's character was not always the best bartender in the world. Before he was the most charismatic shot slinger in all of New York, he was a small town boy looking to make a few bucks. He meets Bryan Brown, has one rough night, and then learns how to toss around the bottles while he's mixing cocktails.
Once he learns to flip the bottles, the doors of life open to him, and the world is full of possibilities. He leaves Brown behind, meets Elisabeth Shue, and has a few wacky adventures which leave him alone and miserable.
He then spends the rest of the movie trying to get back with Shue, which I didn't find plausible. They only knew each other for about a week before he started fucking rich old ladies behind her back--and now he just can't live without her?
"Cocktail" is an abrasive little flick about a guy who does it all for the nookie, and instead of being served up a cold slab of cockroach infested irony, gets a big fat pat on the back.
It makes me want to fucking puke. I mean, movies don't get much worse than this. In "Top Gun," at least Cruise was sweating it out, putting in work--and his talent was special enough to nearly deserve the perpetual smirk on the man's face.
But he's just a bartender here--a fucking bartender. Since when are bartenders so fucking cool? Since when, for that matter, are bars safe havens for the put upon upper class that routinely turn into magical sing alongs?
Since when does any of this surprise me, coming from an eighties Tom Cruise movie?"Cocktail" is a big, dumb celebration of all things phallic. It aims below the belt, and hits its mark. Perfectly.
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