Movies I've Missed Until Now: Cocktail (1988)

There’s no point in talking too much about the plot in this movie since all of you probably saw it more than 35 years ago. But I never did until now, so to sum up very briefly: Tom Cruise plays an ambitious young man who wants to make a million dollars in business but instead winds up a hotshot bartender in New York City. Romance and drama ensue.

A few things struck me about this one. Looking at Tom Cruise in 1988 and looking at him now, it’s obvious he ages at about one-third the rate of a normal human being. Elizabeth Shue sure was cute, even with that big Eighties hair. There’s not a cell phone in sight nor a mention of the Internet, and other than a little nudity and language, this movie could have been made in 1938 instead of 1988. All it would take is a little tweaking of Heywood Gould’s screenplay. And speaking of that screenplay, it has a great line spoken by Bryan Brown, who plays Cruise’s bartending mentor: “All things end badly, otherwise they wouldn’t end.” That’s a pretty noirish line.

Overall, I enjoyed COCKTAIL quite a bit. It’s old-fashioned, just a story meant to entertain and hold your interest without much, if any, message. And I was entertained.