Tom Cruise is Jerry Maguire, America's savior against greed

By Dini S. Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): Most movie posters are no more than uninspired marketing tools flashing as much flesh needed to titillate would- be viewers, but the publicity still for Tom Cruise's latest blockbuster Jerry Maguire is a symbolic gesture of reincarnation.

The close-up photo of a grinning Tom (is he ever otherwise?) as the ruthless sports agent turned New Age guru, was shot slightly from behind, and the Pepsodent poster boy had his head bowed modestly, as if to say in his best self-deprecatory tones: Please don't take my picture, I'm not worth the film.

Fourteen years earlier, the trademark grin was not so humble. As entrepreneurial Joel Goodsen in Risky Business, the film that turned the then 21 year-old into a star, Cruise symbolized the freewheeling 80s. A poster of Cruise smirking at success behind dark glasses sold millions of Ray-bans.

In fact, the 34 year-old Cruise can claim more than just the nickname Hollywood has given him: the three billion dollar man, in reference to the total gross his eighteen films have raked in. Mister Nicole Kidman is the ultimate ad-man, moving as many sunglasses off the shelves, whether Ray-bans in Risky Business, Police specs in Top Gun or wraparounds in Jerry Maguire, as he does female hearts around the world.

But whereas in the 80s, Cruise wore sunglasses because, as the soundtrack to Top Gun bellowed, "The future's so bright I gotta wear shades", in Jerry Maguire the sunglasses cover up the black eye punched out by his girlfriend Avery (Kelly Preston), just before she (again) calls him a loser.

One of Hollywood's most successful actors ever is a loser? Surely we have the wrong movie for such a perfect star. Yet Jerry Maguire is actually the right movie at the right time for an actor eager to leave behind his pigeonholing sunglasses.

After not-so-glamorous roles in Born on the Fourth of July and Interview with a Vampire, Cruise obviously wants to be an Actor, not a product endorser. Funnily enough, Jerry Maguire explores the world of corporate sponsorship with more bite than Cruise's smile. The biting wit comes from director/screenwriter Cameron Crowe, whose script for Fast Times at Ridgemont High was hailed as its generation's most astute observation of teenage angst. In subsequent films Say Anything (1989) and Singles (1992), Crowe brilliantly encapsulated the subtle neurosis of Generation X. It's a pity that although Jerry Maguire was nominated for Best Film and Tom Cruise for Best Actor, Crowe's shrewd direction and laugh-a-minute script was bypassed at the Oscars.

Now Crowe, and Cruise, are grown up. They've tasted the excesses of the Reagan years and are coping with a Clinton era where a "kinder, gentler" America is also poorer, as corporate downsizing leaves more and more breadwinners (read: men) baking bread at home. Disillusioned by Wall Street greed, it's an America less sure of itself.

Crowe's script deftly summarizes these 90s insecurities. The film opens with a view of the earth, and Jerry focuses in on America, which he says "still sets the tone for the world". Even when not openly boasting, pompous Jerry is America.

But after the son of an injured hockey player tells him off, Jerry starts to question his existence as "just another shark in a suit". His introspection peaks during a sleepless night of self-hatred, when he writes a 25-page "mission statement" to his cash-cow Sports Management International, and concludes: "Fewer clients. Less money. No bullshit". Again Jerry's re-think on life mirrors that of the Americans leaving the cities for rural "peace", of waking up to the end of the superpower era.

Jerry's "touchy feely" sermonizing on selflessness, no doubt influenced by Cruise's affiliation to the personality-molding Church of Scientology, is not fully on the mark. For many Americans, the "simpler" life was not an option read out by New Age mentors but forced upon them by lay-offs -- a road Jerry soon has to take.

After giving out 110 colleagues copies of his do-gooder "mission", this fast-talking agent of 72 athletes is shown the door by a back-stabbing but sweet-tongued upstart, of course named Bob Sugar (a wonderfully slimy Jay Morh). Soon the two battle for clients. Here's Jerry's line to a client: "What does your heart tell you?" Here's Bob Sugar's: "It's not about show friends. It's show business." Athletes looking for the "four jewels of celebrity endorsement" (that's shoes, cars, clothing lines, and soft drinks) sensibly passed on Jerry's sensitive-guy approach and went for Bob's hard sell.

Only two people fell for the new and improved Jerry: Dorothy Boyd (Rene Zellweger), the kooky accountant who believes in Jerry so much she quits her job to follow him, and Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.), an African-American second-tiered football player who wants that lucrative Reebok sponsorship.

Considering that Jerry's a wreck when out of the spotlight, Jerry is a big gamble. That killer Cruise smile comes on only when he's with Ray, Dorothy's hyperactive six-year-old son (Jonathan Lipnicki, a very strange kid). The blond, milk-fed Dorothy, a single mother, also becomes a source of amusement, specifically in bed. Jerry Maguire is billed as a romantic comedy, so let your Hollywood-trained imagination probe the possibilities.

What's not so predictable is how good -- no, great -- the actors are. Newcomer Zellweger does vulnerability very well, her soft rubber face subtly conveying both quiet strength and even quieter pain. Bonnie Hunt has perfect timing as Dorothy's cynical sister. Regina King also gives in a fiery performance as Rod's devoted wife. For such a male-oriented sports movie, all the actresses play strong, fleshed-out characters.

But the star of the film is Cuba Gooding Jr. (Boyz in the Hood, Outbreak), who deservedly won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for this role. His first scene in the film is priceless: he fills the screen with bad-attitude swaggering and motormouthing his mantra "Show.me.the.money". Rod is the ultimate product whore, an athlete more concerned with signing that Nike deal than with his game -- and wisely so, knowing athletes' uncertain future with early retirement. But there's a big heart underneath the shameless strut (he refers to single mothers as "sacred"), and Gooding wears it on his sleeve like Oscar bait.

Cruise is good too, as good as Cruise can be. He's probably the most sympathetic he has ever been on screen, but this is a role that demands humility. Yet Tom Cruise is a star because he is the quintessential Mister Popular. And Crowe knows this, especially when he includes a self-indulgent segment of Cruise cruising down an empty road singing amateur Tom Petty, million- dollar teeth and all. Minutes later we see Cruise as Mister Bottom-rung, wallowing in self-pity. It's not very convincing.

The real genius of Jerry Maguire, however, is not its make- over of Tom Cruise, but its use of him as a symbol of everything that's wrong with America, and everything that's good about it.

And for all its preaching against the dollar, the film confirms that money still counts -- a lot. Even after his conversion into a victim of greed, Jerry Maguire still hustles and sweet-talks his way to a multi-million-dollar deal. This is the real Jerry Maguire, and the real America: a lot of nice talk and promises , but no real change.