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| Brian Flanagan (Tom Cruise) with his friend and mentor Doug Couglin (Bryan Brown) - before it all goes wrong. |
Release Date: July 29, 1988. Running Time: 103 minutes. Screenplay: Heywood Gould. Based on the novel by: Heywood Gould. Producer: Ted Field, Robert W. Cort. Director: Roger Donaldson.
THE PLOT:
Brian Flanagan (Tom Cruise) has a dream: He's going to become rich. And that's... pretty much it. He has no particular passion for anything, no vision of how he is going to succeed. He simply wants to be "rich," and doesn't much care how.
After his complete lack of qualifications somehow keeps him from landing a Wall Street job, he becomes just realistic enough to settle for what he can get: a job tending bar under the wing of the jaded self-styled philosopher barman Doug Couglin (Bryan Brown). Brian picks up the job quickly, going from a wide-eyed newbie who has no idea what actually goes into a given drink to a confident showman who juggles bottles in the air while mixing cocktails.
When Brian hears rumors about the money bartenders pull down in Jamaica, he comes up with a plan: He and Doug will move to the island and save up money to open their own place. Then they have a falling out, leaving Brian to make the journey alone. There, he meets beautiful Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue) and falls in love... only for Doug to pop back up with a "friendly wager" that might just ruin Brian's chance at real happiness...
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| Brian falls for beautiful and free-spirited Jordan (Elisabeth Shue). |
CHARACTERS:
Brian Flanagan: Tom Cruise had two big financial hits in 1988: this film and Rain Man. Rain Man was one of a few projects he selected to prove that he had real acting chops. By contrast, Cocktail just asks him to be late 1980s Tom Cruise: cool and cocky, a bit of a prick, but with enough sincere moments to keep audiences on his side. There isn't much daylight between this film's Brian Flanagan and Top Gun's Maverick. Stick Maverick behind a bar instead of a fighter jet, and this is pretty much what you'd get. In other words, Brian is less a character than a vessel for Cruise to show off his star power.
Doug Coughlin: Brian's mentor-turned-rival is the only semi-interesting character in the movie. Bryan Brown's Doug is self-consciously cynical and gleefully sexist, yet at the same time retains a certain rough charm. It quickly becomes apparent that his jaded surface is mainly a cover for his insecurity. He marries a shallow rich girl (Kelly Lynch) for whom he feels nothing, and he is envious when he sees Brian's connection with Jordan - a connection he becomes determined to break. Bryan Brown is terrific, and the film comes to something resembling life when he's on screen. It's just too bad that, particularly in the second half, there are too many stretches that keep him offscreen.
Jordan Mooney: Elisabeth Shue does her best with poor material, but there's not much to say about Jordan. She's earnest (to a fault), she's very pretty (it's late 1980s Elisabeth Shue), and... that's really about it. She's Tom Cruise's reward for realizing that Love Is More Important Than Money(TM), but she isn't a character with any actual agency in her own right.
Richard Mooney: Speaking of good actors stuck with poor material... Laurence Luckinbill, as Jordan's father, is stuck with an even more thankless role. After Brian leaves his daughter hurt and distraught, he objects to the idea of this morally bankrupt bartender coming back into her life. Frankly, if I were her father, I would object too. Rather than acknowledging that Richard has good reason to both dislike Brian and distrust him, the film makes him into a one-dimensional baddie. He goes so far as to attempt to physically bar his adult daughter from leaving with Brian of her own free will. You know, just in case we might be tempted to sympathize with him.
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| Jordan's father (Laurence Luckinbill) objects to Brian being part of his daughter's life. I can't say I blame him. |
"SAY SOMETHING NICE":
Cocktail may be a rather empty movie, but it's extremely well-made. Director Roger Donaldson keeps it dynamic and energetic. Scenes are short and snappy, as if to keep us from lingering on the parade of clichés. Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown have excellent buddy chemistry, and their scenes together are uniformly enjoyable. Mix in some nice use of location filming and an upbeat '80s soundtrack, and it's no surprise that audiences of the time lapped it up even as movie critics rolled their eyes.
OTHER MUSINGS:
Cocktail's early scenes set the tone. After Brian, fresh from the army, arrives in New York City, the film provides an incredibly dumb montage of him interviewing for jobs. Given his lack of qualifications, he's presumably cold calling major firms to interview... which would almost certainly result in him being, at best, foisted off with an application by someone at the reception desk. One of the people interviewing him flatly says that the job requires a degree he doesn't have... meaning that there is no chance he would even get an interview, let alone a parade of such interviews. In short, the film opens with a sequence in which absolutely nothing is convincing, firmly establishing that we are in a world that only superficially resembles reality.
Things pick up when Brian meets Doug, leading to a series of bartending scenes that are just as unconvincing, but that at least are entertaining. There's fun to be had in watching the bottle juggling set to pretty good music, and this section of the movie is amusing. Had the film contented itself with following Doug and Brian from one bar to the next, fitting its love story around that, it might have been decent fluff.
Then Brian and Doug have their falling out, and the film immediately weakens. From this point on, Doug is only seen intermittently; and for all of Tom Cruise's star power, Brian just isn't an engaging character on his own. The love story between Brian and Jordan doesn't work. The dialogue between Brian and Jordan is vapid, and there's little chemistry between Cruise and Shue - though in fairness, they are so pretty to look at when snuggling on a Jamaican beach that it's hard to entirely mind.
Near the end, Brian reunites with Doug for a roughly ten-minute sequence that is so well-written, well-acted, and downright smart that it's hard to credit it as being part of the same movie (was it perhaps a holdover from an earlier draft that stuck closer to the source novel?). I started to think that that this bland idiocy would at least end on a high note. Unfortunately, this sequence proves to be only a tiny oasis of quality in a desert of blandness. The rest of the final Act revolves around Brian learning his Very Important Lesson and winning Jordan back. It goes without saying that none of these scenes are at all interesting, making it something of a relief when the credits finally roll.
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| A loveless marriage: Doug with his trophy wife (Kelly Lynch). |
THE OTHER NOMINEES:
Though Rambo III is my pick as "worst Rambo film" (yes, I rate it below Rambo V. By a lot.), it's still the best of the remaining nominees. Caddyshack II is a joyless sequel that lacks Bill Murray, Rodney Dangerfield, or any actual laughs, and it is very bad. Zero-budget E. T. ripoff Mac and Me probably deserved the award... though in fairness, I have not seen the Bobcat Goldthwaite talking horse flick Hot to Trot, which by reputation might just be even worse.
By contrast with the above titles, Cocktail is a well-made flick whose primary sin is generic blandness. I can only think that the Razzie voters desperately wanted to stick it to Tom Cruise; while Cocktail is mediocre at best, it definitely does not belong in the above company, and I can barely credit that any sentient being could consider it worse than most of its Razzie competitors.
OVERALL:
Cocktail is a shallow, cliché-ridden formula film. Its second half swaps the engaging buddy chemistry of stars Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown for an unconvincing romance. Still, it's a slick and professional flick that benefits from energetic direction and generally decent performances. I don't actually recommend it... but I can think of worse ways to kill 100 minutes. Cocktail may be empty and mediocre, but it definitely is not "Worst Picture" material.
Rating: Raspberry. If not for its final third, I would probably have gone one rating higher.
Worst Picture: 1987 - Leonard Part 6
Worst Picture: 1989 - Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
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