Past Movie Review: Jerry Maguire

I remember while sitting in the theater 20 years ago watching the film "Jerry Maguire" and thinking that this is one of the first movies I had ever seen where I realized it had great quality within the first few minutes. Jerry Maguire was written and directed by Cameron Crowe and in 20 years it seems he has not been up to this level of quality considering both the great story idea and screenplay since then. Most recently Crowe released the movie Aloha, which came out last May and this was quite a bad movie. You can never guarantee that one huge hit from a great writer will ever lead to another one, considering the difficulty of writing a great screenplay. It definitely is very hard to believe that its been almost 20 years since Jerry Maguire was released.

Cuba Gooding Jr won the Academy Award for best supporting actor for Jerry Maguire and sadly he has never been lucky enough to ever get a part this good since. His performance in this movie was both outstanding and very funny and the catch phrase "Show me the Money" is as big as any catch phrase for any movie largely because of how well he yelled this famous line after Jerry found out he was losing his job and was desperate to keep his clients.

Tom Cruise was very good as the lead in this movie as was Rene Zellweger . Zellweger was not even nominated for an Oscar and neither was Tom Cruise, but he did win the Golden Globe for best actor. You have to figure that the Academy of Motion pictures has a problem with Tom Cruise, considering the number of times he has been snubbed. Jerry Maguire is definitely another one of those times where a nomination for best actor was definitely warranted.

If there was a moment in time where this movie lost its high level of quality it has to be at the end when Zellweger's character said to Cruise, "You had me at hello". This line might very well be one of the stupidest and corniest likes since Love Story in 1970 and "Love means never having to say your sorry". Your kidding right? That cannot be a line in a movie?" Its hard to believe that it is.

This movie has great acting, humor throughout and the friendship between Cruise and Gooding's characters is very believable. The child who played Zellweger's son in the movie is another great added dimension of likability which also includes the music and great emotional ending.

This movie is televised quite a bit on cable and should be seen if you have not seen it already, many times.