Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) is a sports agent whose conscience gets to him. He writes a Mission Statement telling his colleagues how they are going wrong, prints it and distributes it. He gets fired for it.

He manages to keep hold of one client, Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr), a nice guy with a bad attitude. Maguire marries Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger) who left with him when he is fired.

"Had me bawling my little ole eyes out in more than one place."

"I learned everything I ever knew about contract negotiations in this movie."

"Cuba Gooding Jr deserves a firm butt Oscar."

"The kid who plays Ray is brilliant. A masterpiece of youngsters in a movie. But should someone so small be frying their little brains by talking on a cell phone like that?"

"I do hope the cruelty to fishies people monitored the bit where he gets the fish out of the tank. I have done this before and got water everywhere - my goldfish pouted at me for weeks!"

"I have grown to like Tom Cruise, but the bit when he throws all his arms and legs about to show frustrated anger really annoys me, especially as he did it in the shower room and in theory should have slipped all over the place. I want my money back."

Rod Tidwell curbs his attitude problem and starts to play 'from the heart', as Jerry advises. His team does well, and Tidwell's contract renegotiation position improves so that he is offered a $11.2 million deal with the Arizona Cardinals. It all ends happily ever after, no sunset, but not a dry eye in the house.

One of those movies that everyone quotes from, so I just had to watch it to see what all of the fuss was about.

A witty observance into how ordinary people get stuffed by corporations, and how they can turn the tables to give the corporation a hard stuffing at the end! That 'love conquers all in the end' is clearly the point, but along the way we are transported with considerable wit, jiving of the head and shower room bottoms unencumbered by the merest of towels.

Both a poignant and fruity tale, and he wins in the end, so one should be shouting from the roof tops, I suppose, but, to be honest, one was simply too sad.

The movie is also stuffed to the rafters with superb management advice from a nice-but-crinkly in a suit.

Who has not heard the phrase "Show me the money"? Did it come from this movie, or did this movie just make it world famous?

June 1, 2003.