A Cruise comedy with slick moves

Originally published December 13, 1996

When sports superagent Jerry Maguire gets canned by the agency he helped create, his parting gesture of defiance is to take the goldfish from the office aquarium. They make safer company than the tank full of piranhas he's been swimming in.

Cruise's droll adieu in Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire arrives early enough to mark a farewell to some of the more shopworn conventions that Hollywood usually foists on this kind of romantic comedy. The movie offers a pleasure similar to watching Jerry Rice run a pass pattern for a touchdown. You may know where he's going to end up, but there are surprise moves along the way and admirable precision in their execution.

In his third feature, Crowe has the good sense to trust the audience with a given. Endless columns of verbiage have bemoaned the egos and greed of pro athletes that dwarf the Goodyear blimp that hovers over the stadium. Crowe doesn't waste a lot of time re-establishing the point.

The jocks' single-minded, almost loony rapacity is exceeded only by that of the hucksters who surround them. The agents of Jerry Maguire run their patterns clutching cellular phones instead of footballs, and any kind of personal foul is allowed in their game; Crowe perfectly catches the tone of glitzy sleaze.

Jerry Maguire, like so many of Cruise's roles, is a character destined for redemptive changes. He takes a look at his life and sits down to write a ``mission statement'' on his laptop that maps a new and more humane set of goals for his agency. It is, of course, a mission impossible under the circumstances, and Jerry is soon out on the street.

Unlike Mission Impossible, Jerry Maguire gives Cruise something to work with.. He takes to it with zest. He is once more the hustler and borderline con artist discovering the value of something besides money - albeit grudgingly. But this time Crowe, who also wrote the smart script, has framed the transition with some very funny observations of a world running on empty.

Jerry Maguire sends Jerry into a tailspin with two possibilities of rescue. There is Dorothy (delightful Renee Zellweger), a single mother who shares a house with a divorced sister and who quits her accounting job with Sports Management International. She is the only creature, besides the goldfish, to bolt SMI with Jerry, hoping to close her own lifetime deal with him as he fights to retain his rapidly dwindling client list.

And there is one loyalist client, flashy wide receiver Rod Tidwell, whose main interest is being on the receiving end of as much endorsement lucre as possible. Rendered by Cuba Gooding Jr. with enough boisterous flair to make Deion Sanders seem self-effacing, Tidwell is one of the few honest voices in the greedy clamor of Jerry Maguire. Tidwell and his wife at least know what they want.

But to the rest of his clients, Jerry starting his own business is a rat climbing back on board a sinking ship. Dorothy and her son will eventually offer him a different path littered with unexpected obstacles and diverting cameos from the sports world. (Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie even puts in an appearance. )

There are a few wrong moves in Jerry Maguire, among them a running joke about a divorced women's support group that belongs in a recycled sitcom. But for most of the playing time Crowe keeps the film where the minds of his sports agents are so firmly fixated - right on the money.