Review of Jerry Maguire (1996) by Tim K — 03 Sep 2013

Oh, Tom Cruise... what are we going to do with you? I'd been hearing for years that Jerry Maguire was one of Cruise's best movies, which (contrary to popular belief) is saying something. Sure, the guy was in Mission: Impossible and Top Gun, but he has also starred in great films like Risky Business and A Few Good Men. Because of his Nicolas Cage-like ability to star in both atrocious and great films (and because of his creepy Scientology shit), I've never been able to decide whether he's a good or a shitty actor. Jerry Maguire, however, is one enormous argument in favor of the latter.

It's not that Cruise's performance is terrible-- he really gives it his all-- but he isn't given much to work with, and what he is given is mostly sappy and terrible. He stars as the title character, Jerry Maguire, a sports agent who has a sudden revelation that what he does is shitty. He represents baseball players who rape people, unrepentantly sells out 16-year-old athletes, and sends football players back out to the field even after their third, fourth, and fifth concussions. This realization leads him to write an office memo that declares that the company should stop being so obsessed with making money. Unsurprisingly, this gets him fired. He goes off to represent one client as a freelancing agent, along with his quasi-girlfriend who came with him. Because she was "inspired" by his memo. Seriously, if a memo can change your life this much, you really have some issues.

This movie is pretty God damn corny. This is the biggest sin a movie can commit, as the dialogue turns its back on realism and instead goes for being canned and 'heartwarming.' Cruise and his beau are so fucking obnoxious to watch onscreen, it hurts. Featuring classically bland dialogue like "You complete me" and "You had me at hello," this is a movie for people who want to watch something safe and tame while cuddling up beside a fireplace. It is such an enormous fucking lame lame. You have to wonder if the writers just had a box labelled "Romance movie cliches" and just started pulling shit out of it. Even if it is a little touching sometimes, you feel manipulated when it is. And that's not the feeling one should get from a movie. If the movie manipulates you, you shouldn't feel like it did so. You should just be so moved by it that you overlook the fact that it reduced you to a weepy ball of feels.

The story is mildly interesting, but the simplistic morals of the story make it really boring to watch. It's so cut and dried, one-dimensional, and black-and-white. Also, it's an enormous ego trip for Tom Cruise, which is utterly insufferable. I'll just point out a few things that others have noticed: Firstly, he bumps his head (or has to duck) way too many times in this movie. I didn't notice it at first, but soon the point was driven home. It was just a way of subliminally trying to convince the audience that Cruise is tall, seeing as he is notoriously self-conscious about his height. In fact, the whole cast is shorter than him. And when he pulls his stupid "Remove sunglasses slowly in the doorway" shit, I'm just fucking done. He's an okay actor, but studios (and his agents) need to stop going out of their way to try and convince people that he's cool.

There's also a lot of weird, unsettling racism. I won't delve into it, but it kind of makes the audience feel awkward for watching it. But even if it is abundantly corny, Jerry Maguire does have its moments. The child actor is actually pretty good, but he had me wondering sometimes... did he have ADHD? Or Asperger's? I wasn't sure. Also, it was kind of creepy when Jerry fell so in love with the kid and married his mom. Was it for that reason? I dunno... also, even with a long-ass running time, Jerry Maguire glosses over a lot of stuff pretty quickly. In one scene, Jerry's girlfriend is leaving, so he proposes marriage. Then she says yes. In the next scene, they're getting married. WELL, THAT WAS FAST!!! You were about to pack up and GTFO a second ago, and now you're marrying this fuck? That's not the only example-- This movie spends a lot of time on details, leaving it to rush through some seriously major plot points.

Final Score for Jerry Maguire: 4/10 stars. Call me heartless, but beneath all of its fluff, this is a very poorly written, bland, and uninvolving movie. It throws up smokescreens a lot of the time to try and convince us that it's deeper and more meaningful than it really is, but at the end of the day, it's just corny and canned. All the laughs and powerful moments seem manufactured and unrealistic, and it is sometimes a truly unpleasant viewing experience. The acting is weak, the story is just a typical romance set in front of a backdrop about sports, and it's altogether a lightweight movie that has no edge or roughness to it. I will give it this, though: It had me at the credits.