Down with chick flicks

Rating: 4/10 (14 December 1999)

I thought this was supposed to be about a sports agent. What's Renée Zellweger doing there? What's that unendurable kid doing there? I can just HEAR the cynical clanking of gears in the writer's mind. `Okay - so the average member of the audience will simply fall asleep when we show it the story of an ethical quest. Look how Quiz Show' fared. So we'll write this quote, love story, unquote, one that has NOTHING WHATEVER to do with the basic plot, and we'll make the hero go through both the love story and the real story simultaneously.'
Only it's worse than that. Jerry Maguire undergoes his change of heart too early in the film - all we find out about him beforehand is that he's the kind of person with a conscience on the point of rebellion, and then - surprise! - his conscience rebels. We don't see how he became corrupted in the first place or how he escaped corruption in the end. Well, maybe we'll see some more of this corruption-in-the-sports-agency theme later.
`Well sorry,' says the writer, `screen time is limited, maybe I can spare half an hour from my contrived and sappy romance, but I tell you what: I'll let you watch Cuba Gooding, Jr. bellowing at people in a zany fashion. That's vaguely to do with sport, isn't it? After all, he's a -' (consults notes) `- football player.'
Finally - SPOILER AHEAD - I have one more question for the writer. I don't know much about American football (apart from the fact that it's STUPID), but when Jerry urges Rod to play in such away that he swings through the air and lands smack on his bare skull ... how is that any different from what he does to the bedridden footballer, at the start of the movie? I mean, he makes the bedridden footballer risk concussion in the pursuit of money, and Rod risk concussion for the love of the game, but in either case the result is concussion. And what is Rod's reward? He gets to make a zany-antics ad for one of those reptilian sports shoe companies, in exchange for a fat cheque. Nope - no naked greed there.