- Actors: Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr., Renée Zellweger
- Director: Cameron Crowe
- Format: Blu-ray
- Language: English
- Subtitles: Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, English, German, Greek, Hebrew, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Swedish
- Dubbed: French, German
- Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
- Rated: R
- Studio: SONY PICTURES HOME ENT.
I still remember
the marketing campaign for Jerry Maguire.
Or perhaps more accurately, I remember several different approaches to sell the
film. Some trailers/commercials focused on the sports elements in the film,
others in the buddy comedy storyline, and of course many zeroed in on the
romance. This may have just appeared to be a marketing ploy to get as many
seats filled as possible, but the truth is that all elements promoted actually
do have equal importance in the narrative. That’s what made Cameron Crowe’s
film so great, beyond the charming performances and a killer soundtrack;
watching Jerry Maguire is like
getting three movies for the price of one.
Jerry Maguire begins as a redemption
narrative, though it will take nearly the entire 138-minute run time for the
title character to complete redeem himself from a lifetime of selfish choices. Maguire
(Tom Cruise) is a top sports agent who one day wakes up to the superficiality
and greed rampant in his line of work, with the film even taking an early stab
at the hidden dangers of sports-related injuries. In an attempt to clear his
conscience, Maguire writes a mission statement about these concerns, voicing a
plea for less clients and more compassion, which ultimately gets him fired from
his job at a top agency. Determined to use this setback to put his words into
action, Maguire starts his own agency. The only problem is that only one of his
clients decides to stay with him.
This client is
Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.), an aging football player with a huge ego and an
even larger chip on his shoulder. Determined to make enough money with his
final contract to support his family in the years to come, Tidwell is
constantly handicapped by his inability to let go of each injustice done to him
over the course of his career. Both Tidwell and Maguire are flawed individuals,
but somehow their relationship helps each of them face their own faults with
hope of growing.
Tidwell is the
only client to follow Maguire when he is fired, but the agent’s mission
statement is also enough to inspire one of the agency’s lower level assistants
to follow him. Despite concerns over health benefits needed for her young son,
young widow Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger) impulsively follows Maguire. This
inevitably turns into a romantic relationship as well as a working one, which
is further complicated by Maguire’s recent discovery of his own inability to be
alone and a bad breakup with his fiancé (Kelly Preston). The romance in this
film is not your typical fantasy fare, but instead shows the complexities of
falling for another person despite their shortcomings.
“Show me the
money.” “You had me at hello.” “Help me help you.” There are more recognizable
quotes in Jerry Maguire than nearly any other film from the ‘90s, though it was
much more than a solid screenplay from Crowe which made all of these lines
stick in the head of audience members. A great deal of credit also goes to the
actors who so effortlessly embody the roles (not to mention the casting
director that put them there). Cruise utilizes his charming persona and good
looks with a flawed protagonist that makes him human and relatable, often
because of those shortcomings rather than despite them. Gooding Jr. gave a
performance that tapped into his own natural charm and energy, a fact that
became even clearer by his exuberant acceptance speech after winning an Academy
Award for the role. It was hard not to be reminded of the climactic football
sequence in the film when the actor energetically took the stage to accept his
gold statue. And this was also a breakout film for Zellweger, only occasionally
overshadowed by the scene stealing performance by Jonathan Lipnicki as her
adorable onscreen son.
When this film
was first released on DVD, there were plenty of fantastic special features
included, and they have been transferred over for this 20th
Anniversary Edition on Blu-ray. These include a picture-in-picture commentary
track with the three stars and Crowe, deleted scenes, rehearsal footage, and a
making-of featurette. New special features include an additional 60-minutes of
deleted scenes and a 3-part retrospective with new interviews from Cruise and
Crowe. There is also a digital copy, apparently, though it has yet to be made
available. This may change in the near future, though many of the Ultraviolet
codes included in the releases of the past month have not been working. I have
contacted the service to ask why this is and have received no explanation. It
may simply be a case of mistakes made during the holiday break, but these
problems have affected several titles claiming to include digital copies over
the last few weeks. My suggestion would be to double check the availability of
the digital copy prior to making this purchase, if that is an extra which is
important to you.
Entertainment Value:
10/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 9/10
Historical
Significance: 9.5/10
Special Features: 9/10
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