Rating: 
Summary: Cocktails Galore!
Review: Brian Flanagan(Tom Cruise) plans with his middle-aged buddy Doug(Bryan Brown) to open a cocktail bar Cocktails & Dreams. He studies bartending at a community college. The professor(Paul Benedict of TV's The Jeffersons) threatened to fail Brian after making a harsh comment. At his first bartending job,while fresh in college,Brian doesn't toss around the booze and glasses like novice bartenders do. As his skills improved,Brian had the patrons singing,"Addicted To Love",the late Robert Palmer's hit song. While on holiday in Jamaica with Doug and Doug's new bride(Kelly Lynch),Brian meets a pretty girl named Jordyne Mooney(Elisabeth Shue). Jordyne's girlfriend passed out on the beach after a champagne binge and a sunbath. Brian saved the girlfriend's life. Brian and Jordyne are romantically involved until Jordyne catches Brian with another woman,this one wealthy like Doug's new wife. Doug made a bet that Brian can't hook up with a wealthy woman. Brian accepted the bet since it was a dare. When Brian visits Jerry's Deli back in New York,where Jordyne works as a waitress,Jordyne drenches him with various entrees. Brian showed up at Jerry's to apologize to Jordyne for hurting her,but had no chance to do so. So Brian goes to Jordyne's penthouse apartment where he meets her father Richard(Laurence Luckinbill). Richard offers $10,000 to "get Brian out of Jordyne's life". Jordyne's is now pregnant with twins and Brian is the father. Brian tears up Richard's written check("This is how hung up on money I am."). Doug wound up drinking himself to death on a vessel. Brian returns to the Mooneys' apartment and proposes to Jordyne. At the newly opened Flanagan's,Brian and his new wife are toasted by Brian's uncle,who himself owns a tavern. Director Roger Donaldson subsequently directed 1990's CADILLAC MAN.
Rating: 
Summary: So Awful that it's Amazing!
Review: Every now and then a film comes along that has such poor acting, insane plot twists, and utterly absurd screenplay that you can't help but enjoy it....alot! "Cocktail" is just that film! With Tom Cruise as an arrogant, young, uber-bartender, the always amusing Bryan Brown as his English mentor, and Elizabeth Shue as the woman Cruise falls for, you've got quite a cast! Throw in some startling and bizarre apperances by Kelly Lynch, Gina Gershon, and that white guy from the Jeffersons and you get an interesting ensemble.
Watch it just once, and some of the amazing one-liners will stick in your head ("beer is for breakfast around here...drunk or begone," or just about any of Coughlin's Laws). The banter between Cruise and Brown is quite interesting, as is their highly coordinated bar stunts. Shue is fun to watch in every scene, though not as fun as she was when she was getting it from all those guys backdoor-style in "Leaving Las Vegas."
All in all, "Cocktail" will puzzle you, startle you, surprise you, and, like a good bartender, keep you coming back, round after round!
Rating: 
Summary: As "Great-Awful" as "Plan 9 From Outer Space"!
Review: This movie is one of those sublimely awful movies that should be savored line by line, wretched moment by wretched moment.
As truly awful as "Plan 9 From Outer Space."
So awful it's terrifying at first, then mesmerizing, then strangely exhilirating--I mean, can people really conceive of something THIS bad?
The "Best Worst" Film of the entire 80s, by a long shot.
Rating:
Summary: Cocktails Galore!
Review: Brian Flanagan(Tom Cruise) plans with his middle-aged buddy Doug(Bryan Brown) to open a cocktail bar Cocktails & Dreams. He studies bartending at a community college. The professor(Paul Benedict of TV's The Jeffersons) threatened to fail Brian after making a harsh comment. At his first bartending job,while fresh in college,Brian doesn't toss around the booze and glasses like novice bartenders do. As his skills improved,Brian had the patrons singing,"Addicted To Love",the late Robert Palmer's hit song. While on holiday in Jamaica with Doug and Doug's new bride(Kelly Lynch),Brian meets a pretty girl named Jordyne Mooney(Elisabeth Shue). Jordyne's girlfriend passed out on the beach after a champagne binge and a sunbath. Brian saved the girlfriend's life. Brian and Jordyne are romantically involved until Jordyne catches Brian with another woman,this one wealthy like Doug's new wife. Doug made a bet that Brian can't hook up with a wealthy woman. Brian accepted the bet since it was a dare. When Brian visits Jerry's Deli back in New York,where Jordyne works as a waitress,Jordyne drenches him with various entrees. Brian showed up at Jerry's to apologize to Jordyne for hurting her,but had no chance to do so. So Brian goes to Jordyne's penthouse apartment where he meets her father Richard(Laurence Luckinbill). Richard offers $10,000 to "get Brian out of Jordyne's life". Jordyne's is now pregnant with twins and Brian is the father. Brian tears up Richard's written check("This is how hung up on money I am."). Doug wound up drinking himself to death on a vessel. Brian returns to the Mooneys' apartment and proposes to Jordyne. At the newly opened Flanagan's,Brian and his new wife are toasted by Brian's uncle,who himself owns a tavern. Director Roger Donaldson subsequently directed 1990's CADILLAC MAN.
Rating:
Summary: One of his best!!
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: 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.
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