REVIEW DATE: 2/14/99
It's officially Valentine's day. On this day, so the legends say, St. Valentine was beheaded for disobeying the orders of the King of France. Some how Valentine's day went from that to exchanging little candied hearts with the person you love. Maybe the King of France candied Val's heart and gave it to the queen, who knows?
But never mind that now, this is the holiday when you curl up with the one you love and watch a good movie. Hopefully it'll be a good, romantic movie that will get your lover in the mood to give you and extra special Valentine's gift after its over.
I haven't put Jerry Maguire to that test. . .yet. What I can tell you is that its a great comedy and a great romantic movie. If you haven't already picked out a movie for this occasion (and God help you if it's Titanic again. . .ick) then this is defiantly the one you should make a grab at.
Jerry Maguire is about, well, Jerry Maguire
(Tom Cruise), a sports agent who engaged to be married, and an all around nice guy. Sort
of. Jerry's real problem is that he's a very Job oriented guy and in caring about his job
he has forgotten to care about his clients. He realizes this after the son of and injured
player calls him a naughty word, which doesn't help his self image much. So he has a moral
epiphany at about two in the morning and writes this memo ("It's a Mission
Statement" he says) and outlines his new found believes.
He gets fired for his trouble. And that's just the beginning in a list of bad stuff. His fiancée leaves him, he loses all his clients, he loses "the number 1 draft pick the night before the draft!" This guy basically loses everything. Does he take it sitting down? No. Instead he goes out and starts his own company, with his one client, Arizona Cardinal's star Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.), and Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger), the one person who was willing to leave with him when he was fired.
Sound romantic? No? Okay, how about if I tell you that a romance immediately starts to spring up between Dorothy and Jerry? What if I told you that Dorothy and Jerry? What if I told you that Dorothy's kid Ray (Jonathan Lipnicki) is really cute and takes an immediate shine to Jerry? What if I told you that Renée Zellweger is a babe?
And I've got to tell you that the acting here is nock down, drag out perfect. Tom Cruse plays Jerry as suave guy who everybody immediately likes. Now, I don't mean to sound cynical (cynical? me? nah!) but I've seen Tom do this before. But really, who cares? He does it so well that I just glanced over that little detail.
Cuba Gooding jr. is probably the best actor in the whole movie. I mean it. He could have played the character of Rod as a self centered egomaniac, and the funny thing is that he does. What is really good here is the fact that he tempers that act with compassion and friend ship to bring us a truly likeable character.
Renée, besides being a babe, is also a great actress. She's not the usual bombshell Hollywood throws at us these days, rather she is a normal woman with a semi normal life. That's just the thing about all these characters: they're so. . .normal. I feel like I could see these people crossing the street ("Hey! Your Tom Cruse arn't you?") or in the supermarket check out line. That's just one of the things that makes this movie so dang good.
And for that I must thank writer/director Cameron Crowe. He has written likeable, funny, genuinely enjoyable characters so real that we could reach out and touch them and has directed the movie with poise and skill. Why this movie didn't win best picture of the year is beyond me.
But it did in my book and it should in yours. I think this is one of those movies where you sit on the couch and watch it with your lover's head under your chin, occasionally bending down to kiss him/her. It's just the right movie for Valentine's day, rent it and have yourself a happy holiday.
RATING (OUT OF A POSSIBLE FIVE)
AND SEND SOME CANDIED HEARTS MY WAY TO, WILL YA?
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