Review of Jerry Maguire (1996) by Elliott F — 04 Jul 2012

Overly stuffed with unfulfilled ideas, Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire is a sloppy but wholly endearing romantic comedy. As the title character, a sports agent on his last leg in his career, Tom Cruise is at his best, conveying all the frayed madness of a man who is in the middle of having one of the worst years of his life.

Renee Zellweger is oddly likable here, in an early role as Dorothy, Jerry's love interest. She shares most of her screentime with her sister Laurel (Bonnie Hunt, who is terrific in an all-too-brief role) and her son Ray (Jonathan Lipnicki, whose job is to look cute and spout off random facts--the human head weighs eight pounds, by the way).

Cuba Gooding, Jr. won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in the film, and while it's odd to think that of all people Cuba Gooding, Jr. is an Oscar-winner, he is very, very funny in the film, playing Rod Tidwell, a manic football player with a massive ego.

Regina King plays his wife, the strong-willed and very pregnant Marcee, and she's wonderful. The ensemble is great, the script provides more than a few terrific one-liners, and the film overall is always watchable, even when it's kind of a mess.