Highly Overrated But Still Good

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

I liked the movie back in the days, it's a summer love film, tom Cruise plays a good roll of a young bar tender and his girl friend as well It's a bit kitschy movie, but great bar-tenders film. good locations in the islands, cool music by the Beach Boys. overall kitschy script but still good. the end is not that happy but decent plot. They don't make catchy movies, It seems they will a make a remake It could be good.

After the box office success of Top Gun that catapulted Tom Cruise into mega-stardom,the producers and director Roger Donaldson cast him to make a film that has themes about love and materialism.And the result is Cocktail.It tells the story of Brian Flanagan,a former member of the U.S. Army who goes home to New York hoping to make a big fortune for himself.He starts looking for a job at Wall Street but nobody hires him which makes him end up in meeting Douglas Coughlin,an owner of bar.It results in him into becoming a bartender.This started to become a father-and-son relationship with Douglas mentoring Brian about the so-called "essentials of bartending" and life in general.Unfortunately,it ends up in a break-up after getting involved in an unlikely love triangle involving Coral.This prompts Brian to move to Jamaica wherein he meets a vacationing artist Jordan Mooney and romance between them results.The story progresses with a conflict between them,Douglas and Brian re-uniting,Brian becoming a boy-toy of a rich woman and later having Brian realize his materialistic ways and promises to change for the better and fight for love of Jordan,who unknowingly was a daughter of a Wall Street executive.No question that the movie is definitely shallow and simplistic.It wasn't meant for the audience to become better people despite the fact that the theme of materialism was brought up and making a message that money isn't everything in life.It was basically all about Tom Cruise and bartending.It was about life of the barman and bars.No question that Tom Cruise's charm and appeal was enough to bring people into the theaters.Aside from Cruise,the film also has great soundtrack.In the end,this unforgettable 80's box office guilty pleasure hit will never fall short of entertainment.An enjoyable bad movie indeed.

Brian Flanagan wants a high-paying marketing job, but needs a business degree first. Working as a bartender to pay for college, Flanagan is mentored by his veteran boss, Doug Coughlin. Together, their showy tricks and charisma command large crowds and tip payments -- until Flanagan and Coughlin have a falling out. Flanagan moves to Jamaica to raise enough money to open his own bar, where he falls in love with artist Jordan Mooney.Cocktail, aka the one where no woman is susceptible to Cruises grin, is one of the most misogynistic, sexist pieces of cinema I've ever experienced, and it's eighties sheen, right in the middle of the yuppie boom, just makes it all the more ridiculous.It's morals are everywhere, the message here is keep your dreams alive, never aim to be big, or you'll end up depressed with Kelly Lynch and end your life in your huge yacht.As much as I think Cruise is a wonderful actor, a bona-fide living legend, here, the man is face-punchingly smug, so much so, that every time he smiles in the third act, it started to make me heave.But the portrayal of women here is unbelievable, even more misogynistic than a Michael Bay movie. Gershon plays the woman who destroys their friendship, then there's the middle aged woman who makes Brian realise he needs to pursue his dream, and then Shue plays the one who makes Brian realise that he needs to get a little bit self realisation.And what is that a metaphor for? Why, the films basically telling you that women will destroy you, they will suck your soul, bleed you dry, and stop you from doing what you want to do.And if you do, you'll end up miserable, and dead, just like Doug does come the end, so take heed fellas.If you watch it again, and see how happy the two are before females came into the equation, you will understand my meaning of what I read into the films subliminal message.Come to think of it, is Doug's bar really this metaphorical closet he's been dying to get out of for years, and then young buck Brian tries to ease them both off of the denial train?I know I'm reading way to much into it, but the film is just so random, so smug and full if itself, that it really makes you wonder.But I am right in saying that the film, and person who wrote this, must hate women a lot, because they are portrayed insufferably.Isn't it ironic that so many women love this film, and love the cover of the DVD, you know, the where Cruise is propped up against an obviously closed bar, denying you lovely ladies any service.Mock tail more like.

Finally watched the movie as a memory of someone I knew, who had a part in a scene as an extra. I didn't even recognize them.Just awful dreck. Cruise is his usual youthful Cruisesque acting, which in a venue such a this, you'll swear you've seen before somewhere.Instead of a figher jet, it's a booze bottle, and there's not that much action either.Plot's thinner than skimmed pea soup.It's so bad that it leaves you cringing at the hideous 80's style of Cruise, with his painful effort to act as a showoff. Best leave this one to the dustbin.