Jerry Maguire (1996)

3 Stars (out of 4)

Practical Pigskin

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Cameron Crowe's film about a blacklisted sports agent was arguably Cruise's first great performance as a grown-up, a supremely nuanced turn expressing love and loss -- with a layer of slick professionalism that slides on and off at will. After writing a huge and damning mission statement, Maguire loses all his clients except football player Rod Tidwell (Oscar-winner Cuba Gooding Jr.), at the same time falling in love with single mom Rene Zellweger. The film cleverly intertwines both comedy/dramas as they unfold over a lengthy 138 minutes. Surely the film could have been shorter, but this unabashed Hollywood exercise tricked me into liking it.

DVD Details: The new 2-disc DVD set comes with a commentary track by the director and the three stars, which includes a special "visual" supplement so we can watch them watching the film. (For some reason Cruise wears a low-cut floppy hat and sunglasses.) It also includes deleted scenes, featurettes, and an unwieldy amount of other stuff.