Cocktail [Blu-ray]

Director: Roger Donaldson

Overview

After being discharged from the Army, Brian Flanagan (Tom Cruise) moves back to Queens and takes a job in a bar run by Doug Coughlin (Bryan Brown), who teaches Brian the fine art of bartending. Brian quickly becomes a patron favorite with his flashy drink-mixing style. Brian adopts his mentor's cynical philosophy on life and goes for the money. He leaves his artist girlfriend Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue) for Bonnie (Lisa Banes), a wealthy, high-powered executive. Brian soon must chose between the two, as he evaluates his options. Scriptwriter Heywood Gould displayed his sense of humor when assigning the character name "Mr. Mooney" to Lucille Ball's real-life son-in-law, actor Laurence Luckenbill. Television fans of The Lucy Show will recall Mr. Mooney, played by Gale Gordon, as Lucy's fussy financial boss. The film is more memorable for the 17-song soundtrack and plays like a series of MTV videos. Cocktail was a big draw at the box office in 1988.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/05/2012
UPC:	0786936824018
Original Release:	1988
Rating:	R
Source:	Touchstone / Disney
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:44:00
Sales rank:	10,023

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Tom Cruise	Brian Flanagan
Bryan Brown	Doug Coughlin
Elisabeth Shue	Jordan Mooney
Lisa Banes	Bonnie
Laurence Luckinbill	Mooney
Kelly Lynch	Kerry Coughlin
Gina Gershon	Coral
Ron Dean	Uncle Pat
Robert Donley	Eddie
Ellen Foley	Eleanor
Andrea Morse	Dulcy
Jack Newman	Economics Teacher
Paul Benedict	Finance Teacher
Diane Douglass	Mrs. Rivkin
George Sperdakos	English Teacher
David Chant	Chinese Porter
Larry Block	Bar Owner
Kelly Connell	Yuppie Poet
Luther Hansraj	Ambulance Attendant
Kenneth J. McGregor	Sculptor,Sculptor
Kim Nelles	Artist
David Crowley	Doorman
James Mainprize	Butler
Dan MacDonald	Priest
Lisa Barnes	Actor
Chris Owens	Soldier
John Graham	Soldier
Richard Thorn	Actor
Robert Greenberg	Job Interviewer
Harvey Alperin	Job Interviewer,Job Interviewer
Sandra Will Carradine	Actor
Allan Wasserman	Job Interviewer
E. Hampton Beagle	Job Interviewer
Parker Whitman	Job Interviewer
Rick Livingston	Actor,Job Interviewer
Bill Bateman	Job Interviewer
Jean Pflieger	Job Interviewer
Rosalyn Marshall	Job Interviewer
Jeff Silverman	Job Interviewer
Rich Crater	Job Interviewer
Marykate Harris	Actor
Lew Saunders	Job Interviewer
Dianne Heatherington	First Waitress
Arlene Mazerolle	Waitress
Ellen Maguire	Bar Patron
Joseph Zaccone	Bar Patron
Gerry Bamman	Tourist
James Eckhouse	Tourist
Reathel Bean	Tourist
Peter Boyden	Tourist
Liisa Repo-Martell	Young Couple in Deli
Adam Furfaro	Young Couple in Deli
Andrea Doven	Dulcy
Louis Ferreira	Soldier
Sandra Will	Job Interviewer
Jean St. James	Job Interviewer
Donna Isaacson	Actor
Paul Abbott	Kunde
John Lyons	Actor
Leroy Gibbons	Singer
Gregg Baker	Bouncer
J. Peter Robinson	Composer

Technical Credits

Heywood Gould

Michael Cavanaugh	Special Effects
Robert W. Cort	Producer
Ted Field	Producer
Branko Racki	Stunts
Heywood Gould	Screenwriter
Michael Estler	Stunts
Richard L. Anderson	Sound Effects
John Lyons	Casting
Donna Isaacson	Casting
Richard Lightstone	Sound/Sound Designer
Tod Maitland	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Following Top Gun and The Color of Money, Cocktail continued Tom Cruise's streak of playing hot shots who master a flashy skill, usually with the help of a seasoned mentor. Having already given fighter piloting and billiards a whirl, and with stock-car racing just down the road in Days of Thunder, here Cruise juggles Scotch bottles and shot glasses like a cocky carnival act, going from klutzy novice to revered barroom poet in the space of a few short weeks. It's at this point that he faces success, temptation, moral lassitude, tragedy, and ultimate redemption. It may be an insulting formula, but damned if a lot of young people who saw Cocktail didn't want to learn how to toss bottles like Tom. It's such a resolutely structured how-to (and often how-not-to) movie that it remains one of the best-known bartending flicks, although not the most notorious (that honor goes to the stinker Coyote Ugly). Elisabeth Shue and Bryan Brown are passable, but forgettable, as, respectively, the love interest and salty veteran du jour. Although the movie always finds its way back to New York City, the mecca for bartenders both blue collar and trendy, it smartly steps away into the Caribbean for its second act, proving the theory that lush scenery makes for better escapism. Cocktail is inferior to other Cruise vehicles of this era, but that hardly matters. Dreck though it may be, it's thoroughly watchable dreck.