FILM: Cocktail (4/10)

Why did I watch it?
This was on TV a few weeks ago and I debated whether I should watch it or not. What swung it for me was the fact that I  have not seen so many of Tom Cruise's 80's films like Risky Business or The Color of Money, Cocktail included.

What's it all about?
After leaving the army, Brian Flanagan (Cruise) returns to New York with an 'I want everything, and I want it now' attitude. Unfortunately for him he can only swing a job bar-tending alongside Doug Coughlin (Bryan Brown) while studying for a business degree. Full of charm and adept at flairing, Brian is popular with the ladies and after a fallout with Doug, heads to Jamaica to earn the dollars necessary to achieve his dream and open his own top class cocktail bar. Here Brian meets Jordan (Elisabeth Shue) and love blossoms until he risks it all to chase his dream.  

Should you watch it?
25 years old now, Cocktail is probably, more than any other film, the best example of the 1980's. The colours, the soundtrack, the cheese, it screams of this decade. To me it seems like the writers decided to take all the 80's elements of Top Gun (three years its predecessor) and 'Eighties' them further without stopping to really think about the film itself.

The plot is wafer thin to say the least and most importantly I simply couldn't relate to Coughlin and Brian scheming to come into money by luring women with wealthy purses, how shallow a premise is that? Despite both the film's and his character's flaws, Cruise still manages to appeal throughout as the lead, I don't know what it is but you just can't not like the guy. 

If you have yet to see Cocktail, then I wouldn't rush to do so, unless you are either a Cruise or Eighties fanatic. A regretful trip back to the 80's at their worst.