"You Complete Me"

Rating: 9/10 (24 November 2007)

If Jerry Maguire were made 30 years earlier I can see Jack Lemmon playing the title role. You wouldn't think of Tom Cruise being up for parts that Jack Lemmon would have been cast for, but he does an incredible job in the role of go-getter sports agent Maguire who decides to leave the high pressure agency that Jay Mohr runs and going out on his own.
Cruise has one of those chew the scenery moments when he leaves Mohr's office and secretary Renee Zellweger decides to leave with him. She's been crushing out on him for the longest time even though he's been seeing Kelly Preston. But patience can certainly be its own reward sometime.
If Jerry Maguire lacks something it would probably be Billy Wilder's surefire wit and sense of satire. Jerry Maguire would have been a great film for him to write and direct. Satire however might have crowded out romance in a Wilder film.
And it's romance that the movie going public likes with Tom Cruise. Some of his and Renee Zellweger's best scenes are with little Jonathan Lipnicki who is her son from a previous marriage. The kid is a scene stealer, mainly because he acts like a real kid, not some Hollywood creation.
Cruise has some tough sledding at first, one client he had counted on was college sensation Jerry O'Connell who is being inundated with draft offers and endorsements. O'Connell and his family, despite the whole honest country boy shtick, do disappoint him.
His one client who does stick with him is Cuba Gooding Jr. who plays Rod Tidwell, a running back for the Phoenix Suns. Tidwell's one egotistical handful and Gooding won a deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar. However the reason he won it is that his portrayal of Tidwell is multidimensional. His scenes with wife Regina King and the rest of his family are far removed from the Muhammed Ali like face he shows the public.
Cruise also was nominated for Best Actor in the title role. But he lost to Geoffrey Rush for Shine. In fact Jerry Maguire lost for Best Picture to The English Patient. I was pulling for Tom that year myself.
Though I think a lot of Billy Wilder type satire was missed, Jerry Maguire is still a very well done film. Maybe it needed a Billy Wilder to direct it.