
He wants to be a people person, she wants to meet the man of her dreams, someone who will be as good a partner to her as he will be a father to her young son, Ray (Jonathan Lipnicki). They eventually get married, both of them trying to will their best lives into existence. When Jerry leaves his job, there’s only one person who’s willing to come with him: a 26-year-old single mom named Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger). But, in that moment, you can tell that Jerry Maguire is never going to choose between the two again. “This is business, not friendship” Sugar says. The frozen smile on Cruise’s face as he privately learns the news, the way he slips on that “Team Cushman” hat like he still has a chance, the unblinking stare he wears when he realizes how he’s the only person in that hotel suite with any scruples whatsoever… it’s heartbreaking. The first scene where we get to see how hard it’s going to be for Jerry to sustain his awakening is utterly savage stuff, as he learns that his number one client - top NFL draft pick Matt Cushman (Jerry O’Connell) - has betrayed him and signed with Jerry’s devious former protégé, Bob Sugar (Jay Mohr). Bending his usual intensity towards saving himself rather than saving the world, Cruise’s turn as Jerry Maguire is an incredible high-wire act of moral desperation. Watching the highest-paid actor on the planet try to sell us on the human angle should have been a noxious exercise in hypocrisy, but Cruise’s performance is anything but. Capitalism isn’t really the most accommodating environment for compassion. It’s a hard world out there for people who care about people, especially when they care about people more than they do endorsement deals when they care about the love of the game more than they do about the length of a contract.

And so it goes for fast-talking, floppy-haired Jerry Maguire, who finds his career in ruins after he loses his “ability to bullshit” (and his job along with it). Of course, for a sports agent in a cynical world of tough competitors, having a conscience is just about the greatest crisis there is. Cush-lashĪt the height of his career, just months after the first “Mission: Impossible” film had cemented his status as the world’s leading action star (and netted him a cool $70 million paycheck after profit participation), Tom Cruise decided to downshift by playing the title role in a plucky Cameron Crowe drama about a sports agent who experiences a sudden crisis of conscience.
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This week, as the man formerly known as Mapother unwraps “ The Mummy” and accepts the most impossible mission of his career by trying to compete with the legendary charisma of Brendan Fraser, IndieWire looks back at 10 moments from the one movie that always reminds us why he’s the best in the business. But, however unassuming it may be, his 1996 performance as an emotionally disoriented sports agent doubles as a comprehensive one-stop shop for everything that makes Cruise a unique force of nature. For all of the vulnerability and candor of his work, it’s not even the rawest thing he would do that decade. There are no special effects, and no death-defying stunts. It’s not Cruise’s most dangerous part, or his most athletic. READ MORE: Watch Tom Cruise Spin Through The Air While Shooting A Zero Gravity Stunt In “The Mummy”īut of all those roles, none lingers in the mind (or in the recesses of cable television) quite like Jerry Maguire. 'The Lord of the Rings': Everything You Need to Know About Amazon's Big Money Adaptationģ5 Disturbing Foreign Films to Watch, from Gaspar Noé to Takashi Miike

Here's Why 'Top Gun: Maverick' Is Bigger Than 'Titanic': It Saved the Movies

Newly Revealed Footage Shows Tom Cruise Hyping Up 'Top Gun: Maverick' From the Sky

He’ll probably be a fourth super-spy before he’s ready to retire and spend the rest of his days sailing with Sea Org. He’s been a Vietnam vet, a super-spy, a misogynistic self-help guru, a different super-spy, a samurai, a contract killer, another super-spy, a handsy bartender, a horny Chicago teenager, a New York City doctor on a sexual vision quest, whatever the hell he was supposed to be in “Rock of Ages,” and more. His incredible career has spanned more than 35 years, 45 roles, and hundreds upon hundreds of wild tabloid headlines. His name is synonymous with big-screen entertainment. Tom Cruise isn’t just one of the greatest movie stars in the history of the medium, he might just be the last (depending on how Leonardo DiCaprio wants to play middle age). The idea of “movie stars” has been on life support since the turn of the 21st Century - we live in a world where brands and intellectual property have become more important than people - but Hollywood as we know it will continue to hang on by a thread for as long as one man keeps running for its life.
