TRASH REHASH
Tom Cruise’s Cocktail is a Tipsy Mess
MTV aesthetic meets the cutthroat world of high-stakes… bartending?
Note: Abundant spoilers ahead for this 36-year old movie.
In Cocktail (1988) Tom Cruise plays Brian Flanagan, an ambitious young buck fresh out of the Army and back home in New York City. He’s certain he’ll instantly land a lucrative career on Wall St. through the sheer strength of his charming personality. But this pretty smart pretty boy somehow missed the memo that high-powered Wall St. careers tend to require a little piece of paper called a business degree.
Enrolling in college rudely introduces Brian to the concept of tuition.
Desperate to pay for school, he convinces bartender Doug Coughlin (Bryan Brown) to hire and train him. Brian’s uncle owns a failing Long Island pub, so bartending is in his blood. Just ask your friendly neighborhood geneticist: mixing libations is an inheritable talent.
Bromantic developments
Coughlin is an Australian gent, naturally. Thanks to Crocodile Dundee (1986), Australian accents were the epitome of cool in the mid-Eighties. Coughlin serves as Brian’s alcohol zen master/mentor until a brief romantic subplot conveniently converts him into the…
