Jerry Maguire

This movie is just one of those that has a little of everything, leaving you completely entertained in the end. It has some emotions, it has a lot of humor, and then even more emotion, just when you don't expect it.

Tom Cruise stars as a sports agent in a larger company that writes an impassioned memo that gets him fired. When he leaves, no one is behind him, and no one believes in him, except one of the office workers, Renee Zellweger. In a bold move, she puts her own life on hold and follows him out the door. Cuba Gooding, Jr., as a football player, also follows him, but not without making Cruise jump through several hoops to get him.

Everyone in the film from Cruise to Gooding, Jr. to Zellweger keep us laughing throughout, with one of the classic lines in all of film, in "Show me the money!" In addition, when we're not laughing, we're finding the movie really sincere. Zellweger lives with her son and seemingly man-hating overprotective sister, played by Bonnie Hunt. Hunt's character doesn't approve of Cruise, since he doesn't have a solid job, and once Zellweger and Cruise start sleeping together, it only gets worse in Hunt's eyes.

We expect this to have a typical romantic comedy type of ending, but just when we expect that, it surprises us and does it in a slightly different way in a very different surrounding, bringing up something that had been said earlier in the film that we'd nearly for gotten about. It leaves you smiling from that, and from all the laughter.

Great movie! Cameron Crowe rocks. This movie and Almost Famous are his two most wonderful to date for me. Jerry Maguire is a wonderful story about a guy who loses the picture perfect life and has to go it alone from the ground up. Only twist in this story is that this guy can't go it alone. He doesn't like to be alone. Wait, make that, he has a pathological need to not be alone. So, sweet, loyal Renee Zellwegger, who's been dealt some bad single mother cards in the past, falls prey to his needs and her adorable son is the one thing Maguire (Tom Cruise) may like most about Zellwegger. Bonnie Hunt, who has her own talk show in real life, and is a comedic actress in her own right, plays the bitter sister and roommate to Zellwegger. Cuba Gooding Junior delivers his famous, "SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!" line and the world of sports agents is brought to light as it has never been before. See this movie. It's a chick flick any guy will be happy to get dragged along to see.

Writer/Director Cameron Crowe's 1996 romance about a sports agent who has an awakening of conscience is remembered now not only for its performances (including a set of Gooding pecs that I'm still trying to have,) but of a series of some of the most enduring one-liners of recent history. Everyone I know can tell me where lines like “You had me at Hello” and “Show me the money” have come from, and it's not ju7st those lines, of course, that stick to the memory when thinking about this film. Tom Cruise gives one of the strongest performances of his career in this film, even if the one he gives (like his turn as a motivational speaker in Magnolia) feels to be little more than an extension of his already over-the-top personality. Of course Gooding's turn as loud-mouthed but intensely loyal Arizona Cardinals corner back Rod Tidwell is one of the most enduring roles in the latter half of the twentieth century. Forget whether this is a good “sports” movie, which of course it is. It's one of those romances that even the most testosterone-laden, beer-can crushing, red-meat eating, flag-waving American males can watch without having to lie to our friends that we, too, like it when we see Tidwell tear up.