Cocktail

Rating:
Summary: My Favorite Tom Cruise Movie!
Review: When this movie came out, I was in the 6th or 7th grade. Back then, I thought it was so cool to be watching a movie like this. This is definitely one of the best films of the 80s. I wish that a sequel would have been made. This movie has everything. Romance, comedy, drama and great music! Let's not forget Tom Cruise, he makes a very sexy bartender! He can serve me a drink, anytime! A very entertaining film, worth the time and money! Have fun and enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: One of his best!!
Review: Granted, it's cheesy, but when you look beyond the simple story and thrown in plot twists, it's awesome!! To pick up your life, live and work in the sun and then fall in love with a beautiful woman you meet on an island - sounds like evry guy's dream, right? At least mine. I'll live vicariously through Tom, since it wouldn't work for me. This has always been an under-rated movie, but any red-blooded guy should be able to identify. Great acting thrown in for free!

Rating:
Summary: The Best!
Review: Essentially, "Cocktail" is nothing more than your average 'popcorn flick'. However, it is a darn good one. What was surprisingly nice about this film was that it actually had a mature amount of depth to it. It is also overflowing with big-name stars such as Tom Cruise (Risky Business), Elizabeth Shue (Adventures in Babysitting), and Bryan Brown (The Thorn Birds). But, the supporting characters happen to be so fascinating that at times it's hard to focus on anything else. In addition to this, the film has glorious cinematography- especially the scenes set in the tropics. Another thing "Cocktail" has going for it is its soundtrack: great 80s music!! At its heart, "Cocktail" is nothing more than the same romantic fluff you have seen hundreds of times before- but it is presented in such a nice package that who really cares?

Rating:
Summary: Simple Plot. but surprisingly good
Review: ... I thought I was in for a turkey, but found myself watching a pretty decent flick. Yeah it's poorly made and the camer crews shadows can be seen in a few frames, but it is still a pretty good movie. Tom Cruise plays an ambitious young man who arrives in New York City and becomes known as a flashy bartender in a hot club. After falling for Elisabeth Shue's girl-next-door character, however, his desire for success causes him to travel down a more selfish path with an older woman. The film, directed by Roger Donaldson, is built on entirely on appearances and flash. The more interesting and underlying themes, however, particularly the hero's obvious Oedipal dilemmas, are lost beneath this window dressing, as if everyone involved was afraid to commit to the story's intrinsic value. All in all, unless you're a die hard Tom fan, there isn't much here for you, but if you just don't have anything better to do I suppose it's okay to watch, you know on those days where there is nothing on t.v. and it's raining outside.

Rating:
Summary: One of Tom Cruise's earliest and best movies
Review: Flanagan (Tom Cruise) is a student studying business and who takes up a new job being a bartender. Flanagan proves to be a great bartender, but he doesn't want to be a bartender all his life, especially after his co-worker betrays him and after he drops out of college. Flanagan isn't really satisfied with anything in his life until he meets an attractive girl named Jordan (Elisabeth Shue) and falls in love with her. But even then everything doesn't go as planned after he takes up a bet with his betraying former co-worker.

"Cocktail" is a pretty good movie. It was one of the best of Tom Cruise's older movies. It has a good plot and the soundtrack isn't bad either. I recommend anybody to at least watch "Cocktail."

Rating:
Summary: Molotov cocktail please!
Review: God what a turkey! But it was the 80's afterall.

Rating:
Summary: good gawd!
Review: this 'movie' is the most excerable lesson in bad marketing, mass production over art and a super egotistical 'star' whose hang ups about his height have overwhelmed to the degree that everything he does, every choice he makes, further renders him as hollow.
this is TOM 'VERY DULL KEN DOLL' CRUISE at his worst.
this whole movie out to prove his studliness 'hey gals watch me shake this tom collins'.
ooooh baby.
rake up another million tommy boy,
but in years to come you'll be forgotten (unlike the far greater artist; johnny depp, who turned down this piece of junk, as he did top gun and days of thunder).

Rating:
Summary: I would have given it zero, but that's not allowed.
Review: This is one of the funniest movies that I have ever seen in my life. Imagine this....cast your mind....Tom Cruise plays an aspiring business student who is looking for ye olde get rich quick scheme. Along the way he discovers that he needs money to do things and decides to take up bartending. He goes under the tutelage of a bartender he meets named Douglas Cogland. Cogland then tells him the rules of the bartending game...."Cogland's Law." He acts as if he's this all knowing wiseman but he's really a diluded dumba$$ who thinks he has everything figured out.

They become a big hit tossing bottles back and forth at some high class bar, but Cruise soon wants out of this. So he leaves and goes to Jamaica. Whilst in Jamaica he meets Elizabeth Shue who he falls in love with. They get off to the most typical start possible...she doesn't like him at first because he's a bartender. Then Doug reenters his life and tells him he has gotten married and is rich....only because his wife is rich. Doug found the easy way to the top but the flavor is more than he can handle. Doug realizes that his life is shallow and meaningless, and that he knows nothing. So he breaks this 40 year old bottle of bourbon and cuts his throat....but he leaves a lovely letter in which there is narration when Tom Cruise reads it. Bryan Brown does some great narration by adding an inappropriate laugh in the midst of discussing his way out. Like young Flannigan is going to think about how Cogland reads the note to him if he were still alive. That's writing at it's finest and acting that is unbeatable....by dinosaurs. Now before all of this happens Flannigan (Cruise) has a wonderful time with Jordan (Shue), has [physical activity], goes to bed with another woman, upsets Jordan, goes back to New York, sees her, tries to talk to her, she pours food on his head, she then tells him that she's prenant with his child, he tries to get her back but her father is the stereotypical father who "won't let his daughter throw her life away," ....

This movie had me laughing at every turn because the writing was so atrocious. There's nothing funnier to me than a bad script with no plot. The movie is over an hour and a half and any person who is breathing and conscious can deduce the meaning of the movie in three seconds.

Doesn't the poster of the movie tell you all you need to know? Tom Cruise standing under a neon sign that says Cocktail. Add those factors up and that equals horrendous movie. This is a crime against humanity but at least you get a mountain of unintentional laughs out of it.

"Cogland's Law!!!: ...

Rating:
Summary: Hippy, hippy shake...
Review: Cruise stars as a flamboyant, upwardly mobile bartender in this glossy, cliched film that, inexplicably, was one of the biggest hits of 1988.

Discharged from the Army, Cruise returns to his Queens home, but his sights are set on Manhattan, where he plans to make his fortune.

Failing to land a fast-track job, he enrolls in some college business courses and begins tending bar at an upscale watering hole. There, veteran Aussie barkeep (Brian Brown) makes Cruise his protege--not only teaching him to mix drinks like a juggler and negotiate the bar like John Travolta but also imparting his cynical philosophy of life, which includes the ambition to marry a rich woman and thereby live the good life without having to work too hard.

Although falling in love with artist-type (Elizabeth Shue), Cruise succumbs to Brown's mentality and becomes the lover of high-powered executive (Lisa Banes). Soon, however, he realizes that he has made the wrong choice.

Adapted by novelist and screenwriter Gould (THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL; FORT APACHE: THE BRONX) from his book based on his experiences as a Manhattan bartender, the film is loaded with cliches, particularly when its love story takes center stage.

The athletic bartending by Cruise and Brown is certainly flashy, however, and director Donaldson and cinematographer Semler (THE ROAD WARRIOR) give it the standard MTV treatment. In fact, with no fewer than 17 of Donaldson's favorite rock songs and a complete lack of dramatic impetus, COCKTAIL would fare better as an extended-play music video.

Rating:
Summary: I could SOOOOO identify with Tom's character at one point
Review: This began as a so-so film for me, sort of light and easy to watch, until it reached the part where Tom Cruise takes up with the wealthy woman in New York and becomes a kept man. I gasped aloud in the theater, disturbing those around me. This brought back a flood of memories, let me tell you -- the way they think their wealth can dictate every facet of your life, they can tell you what to wear, they can control your entire schedule and boss you around. I fully recognized Tom's character's frustration, exhibited in a blaze of authentic kept-man acting (it was EXACTLY as I knew to behave, in those circumstances), the way he had to jump whenever she said "Froggy," and ask "How high?" while on the way up.

Tom's Brian Flanagan even managed the classic "gigolo face," that cocky spoiled-brat mask I remember so well in the mirror every morning, undercut by the knowledge that you're really little more than a temporary employee to a rich woman who will on a whim discard you like a band-aid removed from a festering armpit boil. Cruise's Brian coped well with the situation, until at last he was able to break away from the rich woman and pursue Elizabeth Shue again -- but the sad reality is, so many of us trapped in gigolo quicksand simply cannot extract ourselves that easily (and I suppose that's why we have Hollywood movies, for the escapism). I was very, very glad to see at least one man, though he be the fictional Brian, wrench himself out of the Kept Man status and resume a somewhat normal life with another rich girl. Speaking for all of my brothers in gigolo recovery, I praise this film for showing us that it just might be possible to break out of the luxurious, plush, golden-barred cages in which we stew not as men, but as kept men. Thank you Brian Flanagan, oh thank you.