Cocktail
(1988)
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Two bartenders (Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown) at a busy Manhattan watering hole dream of someday owning their own bars. Their lives consist of elaborate drink-mixing performances and sleeping with many of the female customers, until a fight over a woman causes the younger bartender, Brian (Cruise), to flee to Jamaica. There Brian finds true love with Jordan (Elizabeth Shue), a vacationing waitress/artist, but blows it when his materialist instincts get the better of him, and he takes up with a wealthy, older New York fashion designer (Lisa Banes). She brings him back to the city, where he lives as a kept man for a time. But realizing that love will make him happier than money, Brian seeks out Jordan and tries to win her back. |
Having turned fighter pilots and pool players into sex objects in Top Gun and The Color of Money, Tom Cruise attempted to do the same service for, er, bartenders in this romantic comedy. You'd better believe it. Cruise learns all about the meaning of life by mixing drinks, under the tutelage of Martini-mentor Bryan Brown. Admittedly, Cruise's technique is pretty impressive; he juggles with bottles, jiggles his behind and makes his female customers drunk with desire. But then along comes Elisabeth Shue, who makes him re-assess his lifestyle. Cue lots of serious dialogue. Perhaps the best one can say for this bland concoction mixed by agents and the studio executives is that every bartender in Hollywood wants to be Tom Cruise and that suffices as an ironic subtext. Fans of Paul Verhoeven's pitiful Showgirls might like to check out Gina Gershon with her clothes on.