Cocktail

COCKTAIL (15)

D: Roger Donaldson

Touchstone/Silver Screen Partners III (Ted Field & Robert W. Cort)

USA 🇺🇸 1988

103 mins

Drama/Comedy

W: Heywood Gould [based on his novel]

DP: Dean Semler

Ed: Neil Travis & Barbara Dunning

Mus: Peter Robinson

PD: Mel Bourne

Tom Cruise (Brian Flanagan), Bryan Brown (Doug Coughlin), Elisabeth Shue (Jordan Mooney), Lisa Banes (Bonnie), Laurence Luckinbill (Mr. Mooney), Kelly Lynch (Kerry Coughlin), Gina Gershon (Coral), Ron Dean (Uncle Pat)

Or tale of cock, rather, with Tom Cruise as Brian Flanagan, a cocky yuppie who gives up a career in business to become a Manhattan bartender, wowing his punters by spinning bottles and throwing ice around. Who cares if you have to wait 15 minutes longer for your drink, when there's this sort of entertainment?

Other than displaying fancy moves with flair-bartending, he and misogynistic bar owner Doug, hustle rich chicks for their cash, because they're following the "Bro code". Things change however when Brian moves out to the tropics and falls in love with girl-next-door type Elisabeth Shue (who he definitely doesn't deserve!).

The film could be classed as a guilty pleasure flick or simply a paean to 1980's consumerism, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a load of crap when you sober up to really think about it, especially since it's quite morally ambiguous and has a fundamental message that a promiscuous life of excess has no negative consequences. Cool tagline though ("When he pours, he reigns").

4/10