Dan Dierdorf Movies

Combining drama, comedy, and romance, Jerry Maguire was a critical and commercial success built on an original script by writer/director Cameron Crowe and an Oscar-nominated performance by Tom Cruise. Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) is an agent with a major sports management firm. He's enthusiastic, successful, a great negotiator and people like him. But it begins to dawn on Jerry that there's something wrong with what he's doing, and not long after a troubling encounter with the son of an injured athlete he represents, Jerry has a serious crisis of conscience. In the midst of a sleepless night, Jerry writes a memo calling on himself and his colleagues to think more about the long-term welfare of the clients they represent and less about immediate profits. While everyone around him applauds the sentiment, Jerry's superiors think his ideas are bad for business; Jerry is fired, and, rather than standing in solidarity with him, his "friends" in the firm scramble like sharks to claim Jerry's clients. At the end of his last day, the only people willing to join Jerry as he strikes out on his own are staff accountant Dorothy (Renee Zellweger), a single mother secretly in love with him, and Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.), a football player whose pride and arrogance have gotten in the way of his reaching his potential. Jerry Maguire earned an Academy Award for Cuba Gooding Jr.'s performance as Tidwell and provided a breakthrough role for Renee Zellweger; it also made "Show me the money!" an unavoidable catchphrase for several months. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Stuckey's Last Stand is a limp, juvenile comedy about one day in a summer camp for young children. Along with chief counselor Stuckey (Ray Anzalone) are others who are equally inept. Duke (Richard Cosentino) dresses up with a military flair and considers his charges from that perspective. Marianne (Marilyn Terschluse) dresses down in bathing suits and her charges consider her from that perspective. Everything ends up without a loss of life, but Whit (Whit Reichert), another inadequate counselor, has to see a psychiatrist after the day is finished. The story is told in flashbacks during his session. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi