cocktail tom cruise script

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Brian: Days get shorter and shorter, nights longer and longer, before you know it, you life is just one long night with a few comatose daylight hours.

Doug: Anything else is always something better.

Uncle Pat: Most things in life, good and bad, just kinda' happen to ya'.

Doug: I don't care how liberated this world becomes - a man will always be judged by the amount of alcohol he can consume - and a woman will be impressed, whether she likes it or not.

Doug: When you see the color of their panties, you know you've got talent. Stick with me son and I'll make you a star.

Bonnie: Don't let it end this way.

Brian: All things end badly, or else they wouldn't end.

Brian: Coughlin's law: never show surprise, never lose your cool.

Brian: You're offering me a job?

Doug: Uh huh.

Brian: The waitresses hate me!

Doug: You wait till you've given them crabs. Then you'll really know hatred.

Brian: If Jordan gives birth to a fine Irish son / There will be Cocktails and Dreams for him one day to run / A business that will yield the financial windfall / To be franchised in every suburban shopping mall. / If a daughter arrives to bless our clan / I guess the sh*t will finally hit the fan / But this I shall promise thee / I'll never let her marry a guy like me. / Still if our child is the naughtiet of girls or the wildest of young men / I swear I'll be the best dad I can / And never ever get spooked again.

Brian: I am the last barman poet / I see America drinking the fabulous cocktails I make / Americans getting stinky on something I stir or shake / The sex on the beach / The schnapps made from peach / The velvet hammer / The alabama slammer. / I make things with juice and froth / The pink squirrel / The 3-toed sloth. / I make drinks so sweat and snazzy / The iced tea / The kamakazi / The orgasm / The death spasm / The Singapore sling / The dingaling. / America you've just been devoted to every flavor I got / But if you want to got loaded / Why don't you just order a shot? / Bar is open.

Doug: However, falling down the stairs is allowed!

Doug: Couglin's diet: cocktails and dreams.

Doug: The Luck is gone / the brain is shot / but the liquor we still got.

Brian: Not a goddamned thing any one of those professors says makes a difference on the street.

Doug: If you know that, you're ready to graduate.

Doug: Coughlin's law: never tell tales about a woman no matter how far away she is, she'll always here you.

Brian: So this is your profession.

Jordan: More like my... obsession.

Brian: To pay the rent?

Jordan: Someday it will.

Brian: Should we let it breathe?

Doug: It hasn't breathed for fifty years, it's dead. Let's just drink it.

Brian: I'll stick with the brew.

Doug: Beer is for breakfast around here, drink or be gone.

Brian: I think there's a chance for us.

Jordan: Brian, there is no "us." There's too many things about "us" that don't work.

Brian: What about the baby? A kid needs a father.

Jordan: Not one who's not going to be around in a year?

Mr. Mooney: Yeah, with your lifestyle, what kind of a father would you...

Jordan: Dad!

Brian: Listen, I'm sorry I called you a b*tch.

Eleanor: Why? I am a b*tch.

Doug: You are in training my son.

Brian: In training for what?

Doug: For stardom. No matter how liberal this world may become, a man will always be judged on the amount of alcohol he can consume, and women will be impressed with it, whether they like it or not!

Jordan: I am going to be VERY fat, and YOU are gonna love it!

Jordan: Your sexy smile isn't gonna work this time.

Brian: You b*tch! Why didn't you just say a rum and Coke?!

Brian: Everything ends badly, otherwise, it would never end.

Doug: Beer is for breakfast, 'drink or be gone.

Doug: You see, there are two kinds of people in this world, the workers and the hustlers. The hustlers never work and the workers never hustle and you my friend, are a worker.

Brian Flanagan: I am the world's last barman poet! I see America drinking the fabulous cocktails I make. America is getting stinking on something I stir or shake. The Sex On The Beach...the Schnapps made from peach! The Velvet Hammer...the Alabama Slammer! I make things with juice and froth, the Pink Squirrel...the 3 Toed Sloth. I make drinks so sweet and snazzy, the Iced Tea...the Kamikazi! The Orgasm...the Death Spasm. The Singapore Sling...the Ding a Ling. America you're just devoted to every flavor I've got, but if you want to get loaded...why don't you just order a shot! Bar's open!!

Doug Coughlin: A bartender is the aristocrat of the working class.

Doug Coughlin: [in his suicide note to Brian] My dearest Brian, A guy like me looks in the mirror, he either grins, or he starts to fade away. And I haven't seen anything to grin about in a long time. This may not be the most graceful exit, but I know when the bottle's empty. The only thing I'm really going to miss is the conversations we had. At least I get the last word, even if I had to mail it in. Coughlin's Law: Bury the dead. They stink up the joint. As for the rest of Coughlin's Laws, ignore them. The guy was always full of sh*t. [chuckles bitterly] But I guess you knew that already.

Uncle Pat: [On how to succeed in business] You outwork, outthink, outscheme and outmanuever. You make no friends. You trust nobody. And you make damn sure you're the smartest guy in the room whenever the subject of money comes up.

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"Cocktail" tells the story of two bartenders and their adventures in six bars and several bedrooms. What is remarkable, given the subject, is how little the movie knows about bars or drinking.

Early in the film, there's a scene where the two bartenders stage an elaborately choreographed act behind the bar. They juggle bottles in unison, one spins ice cubes into the air and the other one catches them, and then they flip bottles at each other like a couple of circus jugglers. All of this is done to rock 'n' roll music, and it takes them about four minutes to make two drinks. They get a roaring ovation from the customers in their crowded bar, which is a tip-off to the movie's glossy phoniness. This isn't bartending, it's a music video, and real drinkers wouldn't applaud, they'd shout: "Shut up and pour!" The bartenders in the film are played by Tom Cruise , as a young ex-serviceman who dreams of becoming a millionaire, and Bryan Brown , as a hard-bitten veteran who has lots of cynical advice. Brown advises Cruise to keep his eyes open for a "rich chick," because that's his ticket to someday opening his own bar. Cruise is ready for this advice.

He studies self-help books and believes that he'll be rich someday, if only he gets that big break. The movie is supposed to be about how he outgrows his materialism, although the closing scenes leave room for enormous doubts about his redemption.

The first part of the movie works the best. That's when Cruise drops out of school, becomes a full-time bartender, makes Brown his best friend and learns to juggle those bottles. In the real world, Cruise and Brown would be fired for their time-wasting grandstanding behind the bar, but in this movie they get hired to work in a fancy disco where they have a fight over a girl and Cruise heads for Jamaica.

There, as elsewhere, his twinkling eyes and friendly smile seem irresistible to the women on the other side of the bar, and he lives in a world of one-night stands. That's made possible by the fact that no one in this movie has ever heard of AIDS, not even the rich female fashion executive ( Lisa Banes ) who picks Cruise up and takes him back to Manhattan with her.

What do you think? Do you believe a millionaire Manhattan woman executive in her 30s would sleep with a wildly promiscuous bartender she picks up on the beach? Not unless she was seriously drunk. And that's another area this movie knows little about: the actual effects of drinking. Sure, Cruise gets tanked a couple of times and staggers around a little and throws a few punches. But given the premise that he and Brown drink all of the time, shouldn't they be drunk, or hung over, at least most of the time? Not in this fantasy world.

If the film had stuck to the relationship between Cruise and Brown, it might have had a chance. It makes a crucial error when it introduces a love story, involving Cruise and Elisabeth Shue , as a vacationing waitress from New York. They find true love, which is shattered when Shue sees Cruise with the rich Manhattan executive.

After the executive takes Cruise back to New York and tries to turn him into a pampered stud, he realizes his mistake and apologizes to Shue, only to discover, of course, that she is pregnant - and rich.

The last stages of the movie were written, directed and acted on automatic pilot, as Shue's millionaire daddy tries to throw Cruise out of the penthouse but love triumphs. There is not a moment in the movie's last half-hour that is not borrowed from other movies, and eventually even the talented and graceful Cruise can be seen laboring with the ungainly reversals in the script. Shue, who does whatever is possible with her role, is handicaped because her character is denied the freedom to make natural choices; at every moment, her actions are dictated by the artificial demands of the plot.

It's a shame the filmmakers didn't take a longer, harder look at this material. The movie's most interesting character is the older bartender, superbly played by Brown, who never has a false moment. If the film had been told from his point of view, it would have been a lot more interesting, but box-office considerations no doubt required the center of gravity to shift to Cruise and Shue.

One of the weirdest things about "Cocktail"' is the so-called message it thinks it contains. Cruise is painted throughout the film as a cynical, success-oriented 1980s materialist who wants only to meet a rich woman and own his own bar. That's why Shue doesn't tell him at first that she's rich. Toward the end of the movie, there's a scene where he allegedly chooses love over money, but then, a few months later, he is the owner and operator of his own slick Manhattan singles bar.

How did he finance it? There's a throwaway line about how he got some money from his uncle, a subsistence-level bartender who can't even afford a late-model car. Sure. It costs a fortune to open a slick singles bar in Manhattan, and so we are left with the assumption that Cruise's rich father-in-law came through with the financing. If the movie didn't want to leave that impression, it shouldn't have ended with the scene in the bar. But then this is the kind of movie that uses Cruise's materialism as a target all through the story and then rewards him for it at the end. The more you think about what really happens in "Cocktail," the more you realize how empty and fabricated it really is.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film Credits

Cocktail (1988)

100 minutes

Laurence Luckinbill as Mr. Mooney

Tom Cruise as Brian Flanagan

Lisa Banes as Bonnie

Elisabeth Shue as Jordan Mooney

Bryan Brown as Doug Coughlin

Directed by

• Roger Donaldson

Produced by

• Robert W. Cort

Screenplay by

• Heywood Gould

Photographed by

• Dean Semler
• Neil Travis
• J. Peter Robinson

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Touchstone and Beyond: A History of Disney’s “Cocktail”

Summer is just around the corner, and long weekends are soon knocking on everyone’s door. With states reopening, and businesses about to come back into full swing, let’s take some time and meet up at a fictional bar to celebrate.

This week ‘Touchstone and Beyond’ looks back at a film that showed us what a bartender was willing to do for success, and how the price of success would cost him everything he cared about. Let’s shake it up for Tom Cruise’s second Touchstone Pictures film, Cocktail .

Brian (Tom Cruise) is looking to make it big in business and moves to New York after his army service ends. Though he hustles from one interview to the next, Brian can’t get a job anywhere, until he meets Doug (Bryan Brown). Hired on the spot to bartend, Brian is an instant success. He is enamored with being so popular at night but struggling with his city college classes during the day.

Fame is instant for Brian and Doug. Their flair bartending style brings a relationship for Brian with a photographer named Coral (Gina Gershon) but fame can be fleeting. His friendship with Doug sours and Brian leaves for Jamaica to bartend at a resort. Over two years later, Brian is content on the sunny shores of Jamaica where he has used his talents to build up his reputation at the resort. He meets Jordan (Elisabeth Shue), a guest at the hotel, and a relationship blossoms. When Doug arrives and reunites with Brian, he introduces his very rich wife Kerry (Kelly Lynch) and informs Brian about his plan to open a trendy club back in New York.

Old habits die hard for Brian. He is goaded into a fling with a rich hotel guest by Doug, which ends his relationship with Jordan. She leaves for New York never saying goodbye, while Brian is trying to pick up the pieces of what to do next. Brian eventually leaves Jamaica too with big dreams of success, but they crumble. After searching up Jordan, Brian learns that she is pregnant with his child.

Doug is on the cusp of success but it’s an illusion. Brian learns that Doug is in debt, and despondent over the future. His suicide inspires Brian to try again to reunite with Jordan. After professing his love, Jordan takes him back and Brian seems to be on the right track. Several months down the road, Brian and Jordan are married. He has started his own bar named Flanagan’s Cocktails & Dreams and at the opening night of the bar, Brian is surprised once more to learn that Jordan is pregnant with twins.

Cinematic Compliments

Tom Cruise is at his best in the role of Brian Flanagan. He is likeable and charming which helps the viewers forget the negative character traits of Brian. He’s shallow and self-centered, but Tom Cruise paints a shiny glow over these negative attributes which allows the viewer to root for the protagonist.

Elisabeth Shue is truly excellent as Jordan. She brings an individualism to the role that puts her on an even level with Cruise’s Brian. Not just a throwaway character, Jordan makes Brian own up to his faults, and she has all the power that will influence Brian’s future. Tom Cruise and Elisabeth Shue are a perfect match and complement each other well on screen.

Cinematic Complaints

The suicide of Bryan Brown’s Doug character came out of nowhere and was unnecessarily bloody. Doug was melodramatic but the brutality of his suicide doesn’t match up with the characters arc. It felt unnecessary to kill Doug. It would have been better to see Brian walk away from Doug because he was tired of his antics, and not because he was dead.  

If the idea of watching a cocky bartender scheming for success doesn’t appeal to you then Cocktail  is a film to skip.

Fun Film Facts

• Fans of Beverly Hills 90210 will recognize James Eckhouse as one of the patrons at the Jamaica bar.
• Though the movie takes place in New York, most of the film was shot in Toronto.
• Recently, a camera operator from the film revealed that while shooting a helicopter scene for the film, Elisabeth Shue almost walked into the rotor blade of the helicopter. Cruise noticed the imminent peril and lunged at her, saving her life.
• Andrew Shue has a brief role as a wedding guest.
• The film is based on the book of the same name by author Heywood Gould.
• Gould would also adapt the book by writing the screenplay for the film.
• Heywood Gould is reportedly not happy with how the film turned out. Apparently, there are over forty different drafts of the screenplay.
• Bryan Brown once talked about how the original script was the best that he ever read. It focused on the cult of celebrity and was a very dark picture. When Cruise signed on the tone of the script changed to turn the project into a lighter more upbeat film.
• Bryan Brown also had nothing but positive remarks about working with Tom Cruise.
• Charlie Sheen, Robin Williams, and Jim Carrey were all up for the part of Brian.
• The studio originally thought about casting Paul Newman in the role of Doug. Studio executives thought they could recreate the magic established between Cruise and Newman on The Color of Money .
• There is a bar named Cocktails & Dreams, after Brian’s bar on the Gold Coast in Australia.
• Tom Hanks was in contention for the role of Brian but turned it down for Big .
• Former Disney Studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg originally changed the name of the film to  The Bartender but changed it back to Cocktail  before the premiere.
• Kelly Lynch claimed the film was heavily edited which resulted in much of her storyline being cut from the film.

The Golden Popcorn Bucket Rating

Cocktail  gets a 2 Golden Popcorn Bucket  rating. It’s a shallow film that’s fun to watch, and easily forgettable.

Coming Attractions

The bar hop continues next week when we visit another famous establishment that offers talented and unique bartenders, Coyote Ugly .

Production Credits

Directed by Roger Donaldson

Produced by Touchstone Pictures / Silver Screen Partners III

• Tom Cruise as Brian
• Bryan Brown as Doug
• Elisabeth Shue as Jordan
• Gina Gershon as Coral
• Kelly Lynch as Kerry

Release Date:  July 29, 1988

Budget: $20 million

Box Office Gross

Domestic: $78,222,753

Worldwide Total:  $171,504,781

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Where to Watch

Rent Cocktail on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

What to Know

There are no surprises in Cocktail , a shallow, dramatically inert romance that squanders Tom Cruise's talents in what amounts to a naive barkeep's banal fantasy.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Roger Donaldson

Brian Flanagan

Bryan Brown

Douglas 'Doug' Coughlin

Elisabeth Shue

Jordan Mooney

Laurence Luckinbill

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The Best Tom Cruise Year Is ...

… maybe not the most obvious one. But when Cruise made ‘Cocktail’ and ‘Rain Man,’ he unlocked a new side that would define the quintessential movie star’s career for decades to come.

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You’ve probably already heard the stories about Tom Cruise’s preposterous level of effort in the new Mission: Impossible—Fallout, in which he plays the role of Ethan Hunt for the sixth time in 22 years. Of course the aggressively ageless 56-year-old performs his own stunts. At one point, he broke his ankle after slamming into the side of a damn building—and then pulled himself up, and ran across the roof. And then there’s the spectacular helicopter chase sequence, for which Cruise (again, of course ) learned how to really pilot a helicopter. Elsewhere, when he’s not risking life and actual limbs in Fallout , he is doing that rigorous, purposeful Tom Cruise sprint , like Jim Fixx on a Red Bull bender.

That’s the one thing everyone — fans and critics alike — always says about him: Tom Cruise works hard. Working hard is his brand. He’s, well, worked very hard to make it so.

But what if he didn’t work quite so hard? Not to suggest that Tom Cruise has ever coasted, exactly. But what if he let himself lay back just a little bit and allowed the centrifugal force of his one-in-a-billion movie-star charisma propel him forward? Is it possible that this would make the longest-tenured A-list movie star since Clint Eastwood even more watchable?

Almost 30 years ago to the day, millions of people lined up to see the latest Tom Cruise movie, and the stakes couldn’t have been lower. The mission was not impossible; it was impossibly mundane. What mattered were dreams … and cocktails … Cocktails & Dreams, if you will. And people were fine with that! All it took to put butts in seats was this simple log line: Tom Cruise plays a sexy bartender . That’s it. Nothing else was required — no special effects, no elaborate cinematic universe, and certainly no broken ankles.

This is not to say that Tom Cruise sloughed off in Cocktail, one of the more popular, and least reputable, films in his oeuvre. He tossed bottles in synchronized motion with costar Bryan Brown. He rode horses on the beach with love interest Elisabeth Shue. He resisted the string-bikini’d bod of Kelly Lynch. He reacted with appropriate pathos to one of the all-time left-field suicide scenes. He put in work.

When was the last time you watched Cocktail ? Oh, you’ve never watched Cocktail ? Wow … I really don’t want to spoil this one. I’ll run down the essentials: Cruise plays Brian Flanagan, a wannabe business tycoon and military veteran (!) who moves to the big city in order to get rich, and then becomes a bartender at a TGI Fridays. And that’s basically all you need to know.

What Cocktail is really about is the desirability of Tom Cruise circa 1988. Put another way: Everybody in this movie wants to fuck him — Shue, Lynch, even Brown, kind of. Women literally paw at his legs when he stands on a bar top to recite tavern-inspired poetry. (This is also a thing that happens in Cocktail. ) He is, in no uncertain terms, a sex object.

“Doug says you’re incredible with women — a real lady-killer,” Lynch drools near the end of Cocktail as she corners a semi-willing Cruise. “What’s your secret weapon?”

“Well,” Cruise says, flashing his trademark toothy grin, “what you see is what you get.”

He’s not lying.

Cocktail played a pivotal role in consolidating Cruise’s burgeoning stardom, a star vehicle built on the flimsiest of premises that grossed $78 million domestically (and another $93 million around the world), good for the ninth-best box-office haul of 1988, an achievement that could only be attributed to Cruise’s mega-watt marquee appeal. But it never fully registered as a career triumph. Not long after Cocktail unleashed so many dubious fads on American pop culture — including two of the era’s most grating pop hits, the Beach Boys’ “Kokomo” and Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry Be Happy,” to say nothing of acrobatic mixology — Cruise distanced himself from the film.

“It’s painful as hell,” Cruise says of watching Cocktail in a 1990 Rolling Stone profile . “I mean, I worked my ass off on that movie.” Again with the work ethic, Tom.

Defenders of Cocktail have tried to couch it as a “secretly dark” look at ’80s “greed is good” culture, a depiction not far off from the eccentric barfly novel on which it is based. Screenwriter Heywood Gould, who also wrote the book, later claimed that the script went through 40 different iterations, with the film’s studio, Disney, constantly pressing to make Flanagan younger, more likable, and, ultimately, more Cruise-like. But even after all of those revisions, Cocktail was still watered down further during production.

“It was a much darker movie,” Lynch told The A.V. Club in 2012 , “but Disney took it, reshot about a third of it, and turned it into flipping the bottles and this and that.”

When I revisited Cocktail recently, I could see traces of the more biting film it might have been. Flanagan is a prototypical working-class stiff who is twisted by capitalism into a money-obsessed douche, lending his blandly handsome bro-ness a faintly tragic lilt. But I prefer to accept Cocktail on its own compromised, cheesy terms. Forget the Reagan-era subtext. This is an enjoyable dumb movie, and it is best appreciated as a superficial confection. What you see is what you get.

And it deserves better. Cocktail isn’t any campier than Top Gun , with its slow-motion volleyball action, overwrought “Take My Breath Away” love scene, and Val Kilmer’s playfully unrestrained homoeroticism. So why is Cocktail the movie that Cruise has to live down?

In May, Cruise started filming Top Gun: Maverick , which is currently slated to arrive in theaters around this time in 2019. Cruise started teasing the possibility of a sequel to the 1986 film two years ago, on Jimmy Kimmel Live! He is, as always, committed to the enterprise, even if it is wholly unnecessary. But the closest Cruise will likely ever come to reviving Cocktail was a career-spanning bit with another late-night host, James Corden, on that same 2016 press cycle. This is a shame — I would rather watch a prequel delving into Flanagan’s mysterious Army background than a movie about Maverick’s kid . Call it Cocktail: First Blood. (I will nevertheless watch the movie about Maverick’s kid.)

This willingness to revisit Top Gun , and reticence to embrace Cocktail , presumably boils down to one thing for Cruise: He had to train in an F-14 to make Top Gun , whereas Cocktail only needed that dumb hook — Tom Cruise plays a sexy bartender — to be a success. He worked hard on Cocktail , but he didn’t have to work hard. He just had to be Tom Cruise.

But he didn’t want to be that Tom Cruise anymore. And he wouldn’t be ever again.

For millennials and Generation Z, there’s never been a world in which Cruise wasn’t among the most famous people on the planet. (August 5 marks the 35th anniversary of Risky Business , Cruise’s big breakthrough, released one month after his 21st birthday.) He’s practically an elemental property at this point.

But there have been oscillations in his fame. You might remember them, the way you can recall down seasons for a dynastic sports franchise. Like in the mid-’00s, during that disastrous press cycle for 2005’s War of the Worlds , marred by the Oprah Winfrey incident and that time he got testy with Matt Lauer. (When does Cruise get awarded his revisionist history bonus points for the last one?) The past few years have been another struggle: 2016’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back and 2017’s The Mummy were widely derided duds. But his late-’10s period hasn’t been as down as you might think: Last year’s American Made , while not exactly great, is awfully hard not to watch when it pops up on airplanes or HBO.

Cruise has been around for so long, all while working steadily and prolifically, that you can break his career into notable eras, or even memorable years. Many of his notable films come in bunches. There’s 1986, the year of Top Gun and The Color of Money , his first movie to gross more than $100 million and his first “adult” drama . There’s 1996, the “blockbuster” year, distinguished by Jerry Maguire and the first Mission: Impossible , which combined grossed more than $731 million worldwide. (That’s about $1.2 billion in 2018 dollars.) There’s 1999, the “prestige” year, with Eyes Wide Shut and Magnolia , neither of which nabbed him that elusive Oscar . And then there’s the opposite of a prestige year, 2012, marked by late-career guilty pleasures Rock of Ages and (the pretty good!) first Jack Reacher film.

But if I’m picking my favorite Tom Cruise year, I’m going back to 1988, his “transitional” year, when he released Cocktail at the end of July and Rain Man , his road movie–buddy picture with Dustin Hoffman, one week before Christmas. Between the release of those radically different movies, from October to December, he filmed Born on the Fourth of July with Oliver Stone, playing the paraplegic Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, which garnered him his first Oscar nomination.

Rain Man was even more successful than Cocktail , tallying a worldwide gross of nearly $355 million and four Oscars. (It was no. 1 at the American box office that year, which seems all the more incredible in these franchise-saturated times.) Cruise undoubtedly was a primary reason for the former, though he wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award. But Rain Man gave him something far more valuable — a pathway to the “mature” second act of his professional life, to the success of Born on the Fourth of July and beyond.

When you look at the best years of Cruise’s career, there’s an obvious yin-and-yang quality, typically balancing an action tent-pole like Top Gun and Mission Impossible with a “smaller” film such as The Color of Money or Jerry Maguire. This contrast is starkest in ’88, between the disreputable camp classic and the award-winning family drama.

An oft-repeated complaint about Cruise’s recent filmography is the loss of that balance. It’s been this way for about 15 years. In the early ’00s, he made two risky sci-fi films, 2001’s Vanilla Sky and 2002’s Minority Report , and his overall best movie of the 21st century, 2004’s Collateral , along with requisite business-minded ventures like 2000’s Mission: Impossible II and 2003’s forgettable but very profitable The Last Samurai.

Cruise hasn’t made a movie remotely like Collateral since then. In the past decade, he has tilted heavily to tent-poles with astronomical budgets, including four more Mission: Impossible films. Then again, Hollywood has also abandoned yang in order to focus solely on yin. And Tom Cruise and Hollywood are nothing if not symbiotic. You don’t get to your 35th year as a movie star without always adapting to the present climate.

Cruise has been a rare constant in Hollywood since the early ’80s. But neither Cruise nor Hollywood has stayed the same. There have been several reinventions for both American institutions along the way.

Time, for one, moved much slower in 1988. A lot could happen in six months. The Tom Cruise of Cocktail is not the Tom Cruise of Rain Man. When you toggle between those films, you get the rare opportunity to witness an iconic actor grow up in real time.

Tom Cruise in 1988 is like U2 in 1983. In the video for “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” filmed live at Red Rocks Amphitheater outside of Denver, Bono is still an awkward kid — he has a mullet, a sleeveless shirt, knee-high boots, and an abundance of spirited high kicks. He’s not really the stadium-rock Bono yet. But every so often you catch a glimmer in his eyes that says, I think I know how to own these people. I’m not there yet, but I’m on my way. Cruise similarly came into his own as a grown-up star in the transition from Cocktail and Rain Man. Though Bono didn’t completely lose the mullet for another four years, Cruise’s transformation was far more condensed.

If Cocktail truly is a failure — I don’t think it is, but Cruise does — it is first and foremost a failure of career planning. It’s a little like Bono briefly reverting to his Under a Blood Red Sky guise between The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. Cocktail was a throwback to the early ’80s Tom Cruise of Losin’ It and Legend , before he got his act together and became the Tom Cruise, a movie star who transcends time, generations, and bodily harm . Cocktail feels out of place between The Color of Money and Rain Man in Cruise’s catalog, in the midst of his “apprenticeship” period, when he dutifully shared the spotlight with respected elders from the ’60s and ’70s like Paul Newman and Dustin Hoffman, on the way to becoming an elder himself. (This continued with Robert Duvall in Days of Thunder , Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men , and Gene Hackman in The Firm , culminating with Stanley Kubrick and Eyes Wide Shut. )

Standing next to distinguished gentlemen makes you look distinguished. In Cocktail , Cruise resembles a man in his mid-20s who still lives with roommates and sleeps on a mattress on the floor. In Rain Man , he’s that same guy after he’s settled down with a nice girl and an IKEA charge card. This shift from innocence to experience defines the crux of Cocktail and Rain Man. After Cocktail , a cinematic mullet if there ever was one, Cruise would never be so guileless again on screen.

Rain Man made Paul Thomas Anderson realize that he loves Tom Cruise more than most people.

“He’s funny too!” Anderson raved last December to Bill Simmons . “Cruise is funny . When you see Tom Cruise on screen, name me anyone else that can do that right now.”

Cruise’s portrayal of Charlie Babbitt — luxury car huckster, mocker of his disabled brother, impatient clapper when people aren’t moving fast enough — helped to inspire Frank T.J. Mackey, the role Anderson created for Cruise in 1999’s Magnolia. You don’t need to squint hard to see the parallels. Charlie and Frank are unlikable assholes nursing wounded hearts and troubled relationships with their fathers. They abuse people as a way of keeping the world at arm’s length, the ultimate form of self-abuse. And when they achieve catharsis, they aren’t redeemed — their souls have thawed, but they haven’t stopped being assholes.

They are also, like PTA says, very funny characters, mostly because they are excuses for Cruise to launch into prolonged mental breakdowns. Is there anything better than Tom Cruise huffing, puffing, gesticulating, becoming unglued, yelling , and finally losing his freaking mind?

For years, distinguished directors lined up to run Cruise through the wringer: Scorsese, Levinson, Stone, Pollack, De Palma, Crowe, and Kubrick all delighted in driving him absolutely wild. What fresh torture can we inflict on Tom Cruise this time? Put him in a wheelchair! Strip him of his lucrative sports-agent career! Send him on a metaphorical “journey into the night” that doubles as a rumination on the compromises inherent to any marriage! Now, step back and watch the glorious madness commence.

During the prelude to the 61st Academy Awards, Hoffman was the favorite to win Best Actor for Rain Man . He did just that. (The other nominees that year included Tom Hanks for Big and Edward James Olmos in Stand and Deliver , both of whom seem leagues better in retrospect.) At the time, Hoffman’s performance was widely admired as a landmark in the portrayal of a disabled person on film. But since then, Hoffman’s stock has plummeted and Cruise’s has skyrocketed. It’s now become a cliché to talk about how much better Cruise is than Hoffman in Rain Man , even though he supposedly has the less showy role.

This is only half true. Cruise is indeed superior to Hoffman’s mannered, dated performance as Raymond Babbitt, which now seems like a cartoonish caricature of a person with autism. But Cruise’s work in Rain Man can’t really be described as not showy. While Hoffman exists as a static irritant, Cruise is reactive to the extreme. He’s big and bombastic, and he dominates the film’s dramatic arc. He’s the one the audience relates with, the one who changes from the start of the story to the end — not much, but enough. It’s dazzling to witness. Rain Man is the greatest breakdown of Tom Cruise’s career.

If Cruise’s role was merely to support Hoffman’s campaign to win a second Oscar, he doesn’t act like it. He knew how good the role of Charlie was. He spent two years working on the script, starting back when he was promoting Top Gun in 1986. “What I gave him is the thing that he hasn’t often had the opportunity to do: work with a full character,” Levinson told Rolling Stone in 1989.

As Charlie, Cruise is a man constantly reminded of how he falls short, and there is no guarantee that he won’t carry on making the same mistakes after the credits roll. It is a complicated depiction of adulthood, whereas Flanagan’s magical turnaround in Cocktail — he marries Shue, agrees to be a father to his unborn child, and opens his own bar — is a child’s fairy tale.

If it’s been a while since you watched it, or you’ve never seen Rain Man , go do it now. My wife and I revisited it last week, and we barely noticed Hoffman. Meanwhile, we couldn’t stop laughing — or cringing — at Cruise. We hadn’t seen it since our two kids were born, and now it was impossible not to watch Rain Man as an allegory about the frustrations of parenthood. Charlie is not a parent; he’s merely tasked (by his own greed and resentment over essentially being cut out of his father’s will) with taking care of his brother. But his rage over, say, not being able to get his brother to board an airplane , in spite of deploying simple logic and facts , felt extremely familiar.

The central struggle of taking care of a person who can’t take care of themselves is over control. The dance between caregiver and care-receiver requires the giver to convince the receiver to acquiesce; this means the receiver is actually in the power position at all times, even when it appears that the opposite is so. No matter Rain Man ’s other deficiencies, particularly when judged according to modern sensibilities, the way the film depicts that dance still feels true.

Charlie Babbitt is Patient Zero for Cruise’s strongest subsequent performances, which all concern power in some way. Cruise plays men who want to command their surroundings, and can’t, thus causing all that imminently watchable turmoil. Ron Kovic can’t control his body. Cole Trickle can’t control his emotions behind the wheel. Lt. Daniel Kaffee can’t control his court case. Mitch McDeere can’t control his own life once it is infiltrated by the mob. Jerry Maguire can’t control Rod Tidwell. William Harford can’t control his wife’s sexual desires. Frank T.J. Mackey can’t control the TV reporter who is about to expose him.

And that need for control clearly resonates with Cruise in his real life. What could be the cause of his fixation on hard work? Could it be a desire to account for every possible outcome, to ensure that he never falls from his perch? Either way, all of that planning and plotting and persnickety obsessing has clearly paid off. If you can will yourself to run on a broken ankle, or carry on each time news breaks about the weirdness of your personal life, you can accomplish anything.

But nobody is perfect. For Cruise, Cocktail represented a loss of control — he couldn’t change the final product or prevent the short-term damage it caused to his reputation. But with Rain Man , he was able to channel his control-freak tendencies into a character who must accept that the arc of the universe is long but bends toward accepting that Wapner must be watched in five minutes.

By the end of 1988, Tom Cruise showed that he could sublimate himself on purpose . He turned powerlessness into a superpower.

Steven Hyden is the author of two books, including Twilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock , out now from Dey Street Books. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine , The Washington Post , Billboard , Pitchfork , Rolling Stone , Grantland , The A.V. Club , Slate , and Salon . He is currently the cultural critic at UPROXX and the host of the Celebration Rock podcast.

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Heywood Gould's script, based upon his book inspired by some years as a New York bartender, contains nary a surprise, as Tom Cruise hits Manhattan after a hitch in the army and immediately catches on as the hottest thing the uptown girls have seen in a saloon in years.

By Variety Staff

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Heywood Gould’s script, based upon his book inspired by some years as a New York bartender, contains nary a surprise, as Tom Cruise hits Manhattan after a hitch in the army and immediately catches on as the hottest thing the uptown girls have seen in a saloon in years.

Under the tutelage of old pro Bryan Brown , Cruise learns every trick in the book, and the pair soon move to the club scene downtown, where Cruise becomes poetaster to the too-hip crowd in addition to taking his pick of trendy ladies.

In Jamaica, Brown goads his buddy into setting his sights on one of the many women with big bucks who patronize the resort, which gets Cruise into trouble with the girl he’s becoming sweet on (Elisabeth Shue).

Under Roger Donaldson ‘s impeccably slick direction, film continually plays on Cruise’s attractiveness, as women make googoo eyes at him throughout as he does his juggling act with liquor bottles, serves up drinks like a disco dancer and charms his way through every situation.

• Production: Touchstone/Interscope. Director Roger Donaldson; Producer Ted Field, Robert W. Cort; Screenplay Heywood Gould; Camera Dean Semler; Editor Neil Travis; Music J. Peter Robinson;; Art Director Mel Bourne
• Crew: (Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1988. Running time: 104 MIN.
• With: Tom Cruise Bryan Brown Elisabeth Shue Lisa Banes Laurence Luckinbill Kelly Lynch

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Mixing It Up: Exploring the Iconic Cocktails from the Movie “Cocktail”

• developer on September 19, 2023

“Cocktail,” the 1988 romantic drama film directed by Roger Donaldson, is not just a classic of its time; it’s a celebration of mixology and the art of crafting the perfect cocktail. Starring Tom Cruise as the charming bartender Brian Flanagan, the film takes us on a journey through the world of bartending, love, and friendship. Along the way, it introduces us to several iconic cocktails that have since become staples in the world of mixology. In this article, we’ll delve into the delicious details of these cocktails, their history, and how you can recreate them at home.

The Red Eye

Our journey through the world of “Cocktail” begins with the Red Ey e, a simple yet refreshing cocktail. In the movie, Brian Flanagan (Tom Cruise) impresses his mentor Doug Coughlin (Bryan Brown) by making this drink for the first time.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 oz. vodka
• 1 oz. tomato juice
• 1 dash of hot sauce
• 1 dash of Worcestershire sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Fill a shaker with ice.
• Add vodka, tomato juice, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper.
• Shake well.
• Strain into a chilled glass filled with ice.
• Garnish with a lemon wedge and celery stick.

The Red Eye is a classic cocktail, often referred to as a “Bloody Mary Lite.” It’s perfect for those who enjoy the tangy flavors of tomato juice and a hint of spice.

The Woo Woo

Next up is the Woo Woo , a sweet and fruity cocktail that makes an appearance in the film during a beach party scene.

• 1/2 oz. peach schnapps
• 3 oz. cranberry juice
• Add vodka, peach schnapps, and cranberry juice.
• Strain into a chilled glass.
• Garnish with a lime wedge or a cherry.

The Woo Woo is a delightful and easy-to-make cocktail, making it a favorite at parties and gatherings.

The Jamaican Bobsled

The Jamaican Bobsled is another fun and tropical cocktail featured in the movie. It’s a colorful and flavorful drink that reflects the movie’s beachy vibes.

• 1 1/2 oz. white rum
• 1/2 oz. coconut cream
• 1/2 oz. blue curaçao
• 2 oz. pineapple juice
• Crushed ice
• Fill a blender with crushed ice.
• Add white rum, coconut cream, blue curaçao, and pineapple juice.
• Blend until smooth.
• Pour into a chilled glass.
• Garnish with a pineapple slice and a cherry.

The Jamaican Bobsled is a tropical paradise in a glass. Its vibrant blue color and refreshing flavors make it a hit at beach-themed parties.

• The Last Barman Poet

Named after Brian Flanagan’s poetic ambitions in the movie, The Last Barman Poet is a cocktail that represents the artistry and creativity of bartending.

• 1 1/2 oz. light rum
• 1/2 oz. lime juice
• 1/2 oz. simple syrup
• 1/2 oz. pineapple juice
• Lime twist for garnish
• Add light rum, blue curaçao, lime juice, simple syrup, and pineapple juice.
• Shake vigorously.
• Strain into a chilled martini glass.
• Garnish with a lime twist.

The Last Barman Poet is a cocktail that pays homage to the creativity and passion of bartenders. Its bright blue color and balanced flavors make it a true work of art.

The Flaming Dr. Pepper

In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, Brian Flanagan and Doug Coughlin introduce the audience to the Flaming Dr. Pepper , a daring and fiery cocktail that involves lighting the drink on fire before consuming it.

• 3/4 oz. amaretto liqueur
• 1/4 oz. high-proof rum (overproof)
• 1/2 glass of beer (lager)
• Pour the amaretto into a shot glass.
• Float the high-proof rum on top of the amaretto.
• Fill a beer glass halfway with beer.
• Carefully ignite the amaretto and rum in the shot glass.
• Drop the flaming shot glass into the beer glass.
• Blow out the flame, and drink the cocktail quickly through a straw.

The Flaming Dr. Pepper is not for the faint of heart, but it’s undoubtedly a showstopper at any gathering.

But here is more. Here is a list of cocktails that are either made, mentioned, or play a role in various scenes throughout the film:

• Bloody Mary
• Brandy Alexander
• The Righteous Bison
• Black Russian
• Jamaican Bobsled
• The Frozen Banana Daiquiri
• Planters Punch
• Irish Coffee
• Old-Fashioned
• Vodka Martini
• Amaretto Sour
• Screwdriver
• Tom Collins
• Dry Martini
• Flaming Dr. Pepper

The movie “Cocktail” may be a love story, but it’s also a love letter to the art of mixology and the delightful world of cocktails. Each of the cocktails featured in the film has its unique charm and flavor profile, making them a hit with fans and cocktail enthusiasts alike. Whether you’re sipping on a Red Eye, enjoying the tropical vibes of the Jamaican Bobsled, or daring to try the Flaming Dr. Pepper, these cocktails are a testament to the creativity and craftsmanship that go into the world of mixology. So, the next time you watch “Cocktail,” consider shaking up one of these iconic drinks to enhance your viewing experience.

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Cocktail (1988)

Cocktail is everything awful about calculated ’80s studio film making. It’s as if Touchstone Pictures said, ‘Hey, we have Tom Cruise and a killer soundtrack — quick! Someone write a script!” And that script (based on a book by the screenwriter) throws in everything and the kitchen sink in a desperate attempt to recapture the success of Dirty Dancing , Top Gun , and An Officer and a Gentleman — it’s a class struggle story, a buddy picture, a romance, an escapist dream, and a tragedy all rolled into one. Tom Cruise plays a returning soldier desperate to make his millions in Manhattan but ends up having to settle with bartending. Bryan Brown plays his mentor, friend, and sometimes adversary. They both end up moving to Jamaica for a while, where girls (including Elisabeth Shue) waltz in for romantic subplots. Then it’s back to New York, where both men’s poor decision making lead to a surprisingly dreary third act. Once Shue tells Cruise she’s pregnant and her rich father (Laurence Luckinbill) forbids their ever seeing each other again, you start to wonder just how many other movies Cocktail is going to try to be. It’s a hot mess of a movie that reeks of calculated marketing. The only redeeming feature is Cruise and Brown’s synchronized bartending scene.

• Elisabeth Shue
• Bryan Brown
• Laurence Luckinbill

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• Movie quotes

“Cocktail” quotes

“- Doug: [Writing his suicide note to Brian] My dearest Brian, A guy like me looks in the mirror , he either grins, or he starts to fade away. And I haven't seen anything to grin about in a long time. This may not be the most graceful exit, but I know when the bottle's empty. The only thing I'm really going to miss is the conversations we had. At...” (continue) (continue reading) Bryan Brown - Doug Coughlin

“- Bonnie: Please, I don't want to end it this way. - Brian: Jesus , everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn't end.” Lisa Banes - Bonnie Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan

“You bitch! Why didn't you just tell me it was a Rum and Coke?!” Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan

“I left a can of Spam in your refrigerator... I hope your Brewers Yeast doesn't take it personally.” Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan

“ Relax , your in the perfect job. There's no better way to make it than behind 3 feet of mahogany.” Bryan Brown - Doug Coughlin

“I can't make it to my best friend's old lady.” Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan

“- Jordan: Bet I can still spook you. - Brian: No way [she whispers in his ear]. - Brian: Twins? Twins? - Brian: Twins! Drinks are on the house! - Uncle Pat: No! No! - Brian: The bar is open!” Elisabeth Shue - Jordan Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan

“Coughlin's Law: never show surprise , never lose your cool.” Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan

“Your sexy little smile is not gonna work this time.” Lisa Banes - Bonnie

“- Doug: You are in training my son. - Brian: In training for what? - Doug: For stardom . No matter how liberal this world may become, a man will always be judged on the amount of alcohol he can consume, and women will be impressed with it, whether they like it or not!” Bryan Brown - Doug Coughlin Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan

“- Brian: You're offering me a job? - Doug: Uh huh. - Brian: The waitresses hate me! - Doug: You wait till you've given them crabs. Then you'll really know hatred.” Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan Bryan Brown - Doug Coughlin

“- Brian: Is this our waterfall? - Jordan: No. - Brian: It's terrific. - Jordan: Yeah, it's all right. The name 's Mooney, not Monet.” Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan Elisabeth Shue - Jordan Mooney

“ Believe me, Bonnie. You are gonna wake up tomorrow morning with a sigh of relief because I'm not there.” Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan

Excuse me, do I have "fuck me" written on my forehead? Lisa Banes - Bonnie

“Too bad you couldn't keep your mouth shut about our sex life! It only gets better.” Gina Gershon - Coral

“Talk is overrated as a means of resolving disputes.” Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan

“Days get shorter and shorter, nights longer and longer, before you know it, your life is just one long night with a few comatose daylight hours.” Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan

“A Bartender is the aristocrat of the working class.” Bryan Brown - Doug Coughlin

“You see, there are two kinds of people in this world: the workers and the hustlers. The hustlers never work and the workers never hustle...” Bryan Brown - Doug Coughlin

“- Brian: Should we let it breathe? - Doug: It hasn't breathed for fifty years, it's dead. Let's just drink it.” Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan Bryan Brown - Doug Coughlin

“- Bonnie: I had a premoniton that I was gonna meet someone when I came down here . - Brian: You still got time, you know.” Lisa Banes - Bonnie Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan

“Why is it that all these chicks are always named after inanimate objects?” Bryan Brown - Doug Coughlin

“You know how to make a RedEye?” Bryan Brown - Doug Coughlin

“- Brian: Listen , I'm sorry I called you a bitch. - Eleanor: Why? I am a bitch.” Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan Ellen Foley - Eleanor

“- Brian: I'll stick with the brew. - Doug: Beer is for breakfast around here , drink or be gone.” Tom Cruise - Brian Flanagan Bryan Brown - Doug Coughlin

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Cocktail Is Tom Cruise's Poorest-Reviewed Movie. The Guy Who Wrote It Might Get Redemption.

He's writing a sequel that takes place 20 years after the events of the original.

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Tom Cruise’s first and greatest hot streak as an actor lasted from 1986 to 1990, starting with Top Gun , followed by The Color of Money , Rain Man , Born on the Fourth of July, which got him his first Best Actor nomination, and Days of Thunder . But smack in the middle of that run was one major stinker: Cocktail .

In the 30 years since its theatrical release, Cocktail has not earned a reappraisal from critics. No one is saying: Actually, it was ahead of it's time . But it also hasn't faded away. Over the years, the movie has maintained a loyal audience, including in Hollywood. Some of which you might even call admirers of the film. The producer of one of this year’s buzzy award-nominated films told me members of his social circle spent the weekend Cocktail hit Netflix last spring watching the movie and exchanging messages about it. Matthew Rhys, the star of The Americans , also told me , possibly half-joking, that Cocktail is an all-time favorite.

In case you haven’t seen Cocktail , or haven’t seen it in a while, you should know it’s kind of insane. It takes place in three acts, across New York and Jamaica. Cruise’s character is a working-class guy from Queens, who’s striving to become an '80s era yuppie, yet he settles for a relatively quiet life owning a small bar and raising a family—an enormous shift his character makes in a few minutes. There’s a suicide. There’s a waterfall sex scene. There’s a very angry father who appears in a third act that wraps up way too quickly.

But I love the movie. Tom Cruise remains the most exuberant actor on the screen, and in Cocktail he’s at his second-most exuberant, behind only Jerry Maguire . (In fact, there’s some Brian Flanagan in Jerry.) Plus, Bryan Brown, who plays Cruise's mentor in the film, is so good they could've just made the movie about him. Elisabeth Shue, no surprise, is an absolute breath of fresh air.

And so last summer, I emailed Heywood Gould, who wrote both the movie and the novel upon which it’s based, asking to chat. He responded promptly, and one afternoon I spent an hour talking to the guy who wrote Cocktail about the movie’s plot, his reaction to its sour reception in 1988, Tom Cruise, and where the characters might be today. During our conversation, Gould dropped a bombshell: The 76-year-old is working on a sequel.

“I have a long treatment,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”

Here’s the plot of Cocktail : Tom Cruise’s character, Brian Flanagan, returns home to New York from the military in search of an executive-level job. This was a common trope in the ‘80s: If you’re a white guy, you don’t necessarily need a college degree or even experience to land a cushy corporate job. But in Flanagan’s case, no one is biting, so he ends up at a TGI Friday’s, where Doug Coughlin, played by Bryan Brown, gives him a job despite having never tended bar.

Bartending, it turns out, suits Flanagan, and he quickly becomes locally famous for a routine with Coughlin that involves tossing bottles in the air. One thing leads to another and Flanagan lands in Jamaica, where he meets Elisabeth Shue’s Jordan Mooney, and, after breaking her heart, heads back to New York where Coughlin takes his own life. At the same time, Mooney, who’s pregnant with Flanagan’s baby, turns her back on her wealthy father to be with Flanagan. The movie ends with Flanagan opening his own saloon, and Mooney revealing she’s having twins.

Like I said, it’s kind of insane. But what’s most surprising is how shockingly unfocused the movie is for a Tom Cruise project. His movies are usually taut and to the point. This one lists in search of ballast and never decides if it wants to rebuke '80s greed or revel in it.

(One question that’s long dogged me about the plot is the timeline: over how long a period does this movie take place? Gould told me Flanagan spends between four and six months in Jamaica, which would mean the movie itself occurs over the span of about 18 months.)

The sequel, according to Gould, takes place 15 to 20 years after the events of the original film. Flanagan is a "star in the big club world,” Gould said. But he’s divorced and estranged from his twin daughters. “Now that he’s older, he’s trying to reform himself, rehabilitate his marriage and relationship with his daughters.”

To be clear: Gould hasn't pitched the sequel to anyone. The money people, as he calls them, haven’t signed on. “If anyone wants to see it they can,” he said.

I need to pause for a moment to tell you that Heywood Gould is like a boozy Forrest Gump of pre-Giuliani New York. In the '60s and '70s, he covered the crime beat for the New York Post , served in Vietnam, returned to New York and became a professional poker player, drove a cab, wrote books, articles, and TV and movie scripts—he co-wrote the 1977 movie Rolling Thunder with Paul Schrader—got himself into serious gambling debt and worked it off as a bartender at the Hotel Diplomat's nightclub in Times Square, all the while writing Cocktail (and other books). In 1984, he published Cocktail , which Universal bought. Then he adapted the novel into a screenplay that Disney acquired from Universal.

The book is semi-autobiographical, according to Gould, who said the two main characters are composites of people he'd met behind the bar. He is neither Flanagan nor Coughlin, although in conversation Gould occasionally sounds like Coughlin.

At last year’s Sydney Film Festival, Bryan Brown said in an interview that the original script for Cocktail was one of the “very best” he’d ever read. “Very dark ... about the cult of celebrity and everything about it,” he said. But when Cruise signed on for the film, Disney sought to lighten up the script.

“They gave me a bunch of notes about making Brian more likable,” Gould recalled. “There were fights along the way, big battles with Disney about how likable to make him.”

A sequel that casts a shadow on the main character, adding nuance and depth to Brian Flanagan, would certainly be redemption for Gould. And in the age of reboots, it might be just the thing for Hollywood. (I mean, a dark reimagining of the Cocktail story is definitely something I'd see—and no worse an idea than at least half the reboots of the last decade.) But Gould isn't looking to redeem himself.

At this point in his life, he doesn’t harbor any ill will towards Disney or, for that matter, Cruise, who’s never said a negative word about Cocktail . Gould said he hung around with Cruise during the filming of the movie. Cruise, he said, would have him over to his loft on 13th Street for dinner parties. They even paired up for two-on-two basketball at the Carmine Street gym and once held the court for an hour and a half, according to Gould. “He’s a really good ball player,” Gould said. “I had to quit and get a cigarette because I was dying.”

(Look, I get it: Cruise is 5’7” and Gould was apparently a heavy smoker, but I love this story and I choose to believe it.)

When the movie came out to bad reviews, Gould fell into a brief depression. “They hated it. They hated me. They hated everything,” he said. “I was pretty shook to tell you the truth.” Gould hung around the house for a couple days, until his wife came back from the grocery store with good news: She’d overheard two people saying the movie made them think. This snapped him out of it. (He’s told versions of this story in the past. Sometimes it’s his wife who overheard people discussing the film. Sometimes it’s him.)

But he earned good money from the movie, continued to write screenplays as well as direct. In the early '90s, he directed two movies he wrote, One Good Cop starring Michael Keaton and Trial by Jury starring Gabriel Byrne. After 19 years in L.A., Gould moved back to New York when, he said, "the money ran out." Today he continues to write and still collects checks thanks to Cocktail . Its appearance on Netflix also goosed his book sales. On the first night Cocktail appeared on Netflix, Gould said he sold 47 copies of his book. “I was stunned,” he said. “Netflix has been great for me.”

Gould told the Chicago Tribune in 2013 that he was not happy with the movie when it came out. So I asked him how he felt about it today, whether he had any regrets or would do anything differently. “It’s become an institution,” he said about the movie. “I get a lot of letters from people about it. I’m happy people like it. You don’t have to see great profundity in what I do; I’m just glad you like it.”

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Cocktail the musical in the mix

The mania for turning movies into musicals continues apace with the news that boozy Tom Cruise classic Cocktail is to get a stage makeover.

The film's screenwriter, Heywood Gould, told the New York Post that he was at work on a script during a 20th anniversary party for the movie.

The 1988 original starred Cruise as a talented stick-swizzler who relocates to Jamaica with Bryan Brown's grizzled mentor to try and raise the money to fund a classy new bar called Cocktails and Dreams.

"I am writing it as we speak," said Heywood. "[Producer] Marty Richards is on board and he's working on the score. It's far too early to talk about casting. We haven't approached anybody yet. But I do like Katie Holmes."

Holmes, now married to Cruise, would presumably be earmarked for the girlfriend role played by Elisabeth Shue in the original. But Gould may face competition from another movie-turned-musical: producers of the Broadway version of Finding Neverland are reported to have set their sights on Holmes for the Kate Winslet role .

Ten movies made into musicals in the past decade

The Producers: Ran and ran and ran until the only thing left to do was turn it into another film.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz helped to rake in 11 Tony award nominations in 2005.

The Wedding Singer: Toured the UK in 2008, but never made it to the West End.

When Harry Met Sally: Luke Perry and Alyson Hannigan failed to reignite the magic in 2004.

Dirty Dancing: Currently playing in the UK, US and Germany.

Lord of the Rings: On an endless world tour.

Sweet Smell of Success: Short-lived but acclaimed hack-filled toe-tapper.

Spider-Man: Bono and the Edge have written the music. Julie Taymor directs. Alan Cumming stars as the Green Goblin. The limber hero has still to be announced.

High Fidelity: The all-singing, all-dancing stage show about a grumpy, list-obsessed record store owner closed after 14 performances in New York in 2006.

Grumpy Old Men: The musical of the 1993 film starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau hits Broadway this winter, starring F Murray Abraham and George Hearn. A new character, Punky, sexes up the story.

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• Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr Cocktail is a meandering, shapeless film, without the force of character to resist any of the cliches that come its way.
• Chicago Tribune Gene Siskel Cruise is beguiling with his smile and his swagger, but the script doesn't take us anywhere fresh when it leaves the barroom.
• Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey It may not be a megaton bomb, but Cocktail is definitely of the Molotov type.
• Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert The more you think about what really happens in Cocktail, the more you realize how empty and fabricated it really is.
• People Magazine Peter Travers As if realizing that his star hasn't smiled for 15 minutes, Donaldson tacks on a goody-goody ending that would shame the Care Bears. How to sum up what went wrong? Cruise has a line in the movie: "Flat beer from rusty pipes."
• TIME Magazine Richard Corliss Cocktail is a bottle of rotgut in a Dom Perignon box.
• Los Angeles Times Sheila Benson The pairing of old-hand Brown and young-hand Cruise may have been meant to remind us of Cruise and Paul Newman; if so, think of this as The Color of Counterfeit Money.
• Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum Very, very stupid.
• Orlando Sentinel Jay Boyar This vacant, misshapen film is basically an extended beer commercial that presents the world as a ludicrous place populated by sex-and-cash-and-booze-crazed zomboids. Cruise, meanwhile, comes off as a somewhat taller Spuds MacKenzie.
• Variety Variety Staff Contains nary a surprise.
• New York Times Vincent Canby It is an inane romantic drama that only a very young, very naive bartender could love. How it got that way is difficult to understand.
• Washington Post Rita Kempley Cocktail is mud in your eye.
• Gannett News Service Jack Garner Ultimately, the ideas in this film fall as flat as stale beer and honest emotions are as watered down as cheap whiskey. This Cocktail is definitely on the rocks.
• United Press International Cathy Burke Cocktail is so steeped in corn, the drama seems comedic and the comedy is about as funny as a hangover.
• TV Guide TV Guide Staff With no fewer than 17 of Donaldson's favorite rock songs and a complete lack of dramatic impetus, Cocktail would fare better as an extended-play music video.
• Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt If some other drug were treated this way in a movie, lots of outraged people -- including parents and politicians -- would be up in arms. But it's only alcohol, the reasoning seems to go, so it's all harmless fun.
• Movie Metropolis James Plath It's the bartending antics and musical backdrops that make the film entertaining. Without them, "Cocktail" is just another beer gone flat.
• Philadelphia Daily News Ben Yagoda The philosopher Hannah Arendt once wrote a book about the banality of evil. After seeing Cocktail, I want to write one about the evil of banality.
• South Florida Sun-Sentinel Roger Hurlburt Cruise's name on the marquee is plenty to insure the success of the film, even if it is lopsided, shallow, and slips the audience a Mickey Finn at the outset.

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Filming locations

Cocktail (1988).

Want to know where Cocktail from 1988 was filmed? The movie starring Tom Cruise, Bryan Brown and Elisabeth Shue was shot at more than 6 locations, including The Old Don Jail in Toronto, Canada. All the filming locations of Cocktail are listed below.

STORY After being discharged from the Army, Brian Flanagan moves back to Queens and takes a job in a bar run by Doug Coughlin, who teaches Brian the fine art of bar-tending. Brian quickly becomes a patron favorite with his flashy drink-mixing style, and Brian adopts his mentor's cynical philosophy on life and goes for the money.

Drama, Romance, Comedy

PRODUCTION COUNTRY

United States of America

Roger Donaldson

Tom Cruise (Brian Flanagan) , Bryan Brown (Douglas "Doug" Coughlin) , Elisabeth Shue (Jordan Mooney) , Lisa Banes (Bonnie) , Kelly Lynch (Kerry Coughlin) , Gina Gershon (Coral) , Ron Dean (Uncle Pat) more... , Ellen Foley (Eleanor) , Chris Owens (Soldier) , Louis Ferreira (Soldier) , James Eckhouse (Tourist) , Laurence Luckinbill (Richard Mooney) , Paul Benedict (Finance Teacher) , Robert Donley (Eddie) , Andrea Doven (Dulcey) , John Graham (Soldier) , Richard Thorn (Soldier) , Robert Greenberg (Job Interviewer) , Harvey J. Alperin (Job Interviewer) , Sandra Will (Job Interviewer) , Allan Wasserman (Job Interviewer) , E. Hampton Beagle (Job Interviewer) , Parker Whitman (Job Interviewer) , Richard Livingston (Job Interviewer) , Bill Bateman (Job Interviewer) , Jean St. James (Job Interviewer) , Rosalyn Marshall (Job Interviewer) , Jeff Silverman (Job Interviewer) , Rich Crater (Job Interviewer) , Marykate Harris (Job Interviewer) , Lew Saunders (Job Interviewer) , Jack Newman (Economics Teacher) , Diane Douglass (Mrs. Rivkin) , George Sperdakos (English Teacher) , David Chant (Chinese Porter) , Dianne Heatherington (First Waitress) , Arlene Mazerolle (Second Waitress) , Paul Abbott (Snotty Customer) , Ellen Maguire (Bar Patron) , Larry Block (Bar Owner) and others.

Heywood Gould (Screenplay) , Robert W. Cort (Producer) , Ted Field (Producer) , J. Peter Robinson (Original Music Composer) , Dean Semler (Director of Photography) , Neil Travis (Editor) , Mel Bourne (Production Design) more... , Dan Davis (Art Direction) , Donna Isaacson (Casting) , John S. Lyons (Casting) , Hilton Rosemarin (Set Decoration) , Ellen Mirojnick (Costume Design) , Jayne Armstrong (Post Production Supervisor) , David Coatsworth (Unit Production Manager) , Mathew Hart (Location Manager) , Keith Large (Location Manager) , Denis McCallion (Location Manager) , Jim Weidman (Music Editor) , Renee Bodner (Script Supervisor) , Terry Ladin (Production Coordinator) , Mara McSweeny (Production Coordinator) , Elaine Yarish (Script Supervisor) , Richard L. Anderson (Supervising Sound Editor) , Kim Maitland (Sound Recordist) , Mel Metcalfe (Sound Re-Recording Mixer) , Terry Porter (Sound Re-Recording Mixer) , Robbie Nevil (Musician) , Rob Cowan (First Assistant Director) , Rick Sharp (Makeup Artist) , Kim H. Winther (Second Assistant Director) , David J. Hudson (Sound Re-Recording Mixer) , Mary Andrews (ADR Editor) , John Dunn (Sound Editor) , Julian Chojnacki (Camera Operator) , Branko Racki (Stunt Coordinator) , Rob McEwan (Still Photographer) , Don Miloyevich (Property Master) , Perry Hoffman (First Assistant Camera) , Paul LeBlanc (Hairstylist) , Thom 'Coach' Ehle (Dolby Consultant) and others.

Interscope Communications, Touchstone Pictures, Silver Screen Partners III

If you love to travel and like to visit countries like Canada or places like The Old Don Jail in Toronto. If you want to share your love for Cocktail or movie stars like Tom Cruise, Bryan Brown and Elisabeth Shue. And if you love movies and series in genres like drama, romance and comedy, then SCEEN IT is the place to be. It is a great guide for everybody who loves traveling, watching movies and series and visiting filming locations.

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LOCATION collection

Where was it filmed.

The Lakeview Restaurant Cocktail (1988)

Brian goes to the diner where Jordan works to try to win her back, but she is not very happy to see him.

The Old Don Jail Cocktail (1988)

Brian and Doug are a successful team. They work in a great nightclub.

Reach Falls Cocktail (1988)

Brian and Jordan are having a great time.

Dragon Bay Beach Cocktail (1988)

Brian and Jordan are having a great time together.

Dragon Bay Hotel (closed) Cocktail (1988)

Brian meets Jordan at the bar where he is working. Suddenly his old partner Doug shows up.

Baker Street Pub Cocktail (1988)

Brian walks past the Hippy Hippy Shake Bar and sees the sign Help Wanted.

CLICK HERE and watch Cocktail

Locations on map, the exact gps locations.

Cocktail (1988)

Tom cruise: brian flanagan.

• Photos (63)
• Quotes (24)

Photos 

Quotes 

[Last Barman poem] 

Brian : I am the last barman poet / I see America drinking the fabulous cocktails I make / Americans getting stinky on something I stir or shake / The sex on the beach / The schnapps made from peach / The velvet hammer / The Alabama slammer. / I make things with juice and froth / The pink squirrel / The three-toed sloth. / I make drinks so sweet and snazzy / The iced tea / The kamakazi / The orgasm / The death spasm / The Singapore sling / The dingaling. / America you've just been devoted to every flavor I got / But if you want to got loaded / Why don't you just order a shot? / Bar is open.

Bonnie : Please, I don't want to end it this way.

Brian : Jesus, everything ends badly, otherwise it wouldn't end.

Brian : Days get shorter and shorter, nights longer and longer, before you know it, your life is just one long night with a few comatose daylight hours.

[last lines] 

Jordan : Bet I can still spook you.

Brian : No way.

[she whispers in his ear] 

Brian : Twins? Twins?

[to everyone] 

Brian : Twins! Drinks are on the house!

Uncle Pat : No! No!

Brian : The bar is open!

[Flanagan's advice to his unborn child:] 

Brian : If Jordan gives birth to a fine Irish son / There will be Cocktails and Dreams for him one day to run / A business that will yield the financial windfall / To be franchised in every suburban shopping mall. / If a daughter arrives to bless our clan / I guess the shit will finally hit the fan / But this I shall promise thee / I'll never let her marry a guy like me. / Still if our child is the naughtiest of girls or the wildest of young men / I swear I'll be the best dad I can / And never ever get spooked again.

Brian : Coughlin's law: never show surprise, never lose your cool.

Brian : Should we let it breathe?

Doug : It hasn't breathed for fifty years, it's dead. Let's just drink it.

Brian : You're offering me a job?

Doug : Uh huh.

Brian : The waitresses hate me!

Doug : You wait till you've given them crabs. Then you'll really know hatred.

[Jordan is drawing a picture of Brian] 

Brian : So this is your profession.

Jordan : More like my... obsession.

Brian : To pay the rent?

Jordan : Someday it will.

Brian : I'm willing to start at the bottom.

Job Interviewer : You're aiming too high.

Brian : I'm looking for the Manager.

Doug : What's the problem? Did you find a hair in your quiche?

Brian : No, I'm looking for a job.

Doug : Ah, you'd like to put a hair in somebody else's quiche.

Doug : Mighty Casey has struck out.

Brian : The game's not over yet. It wouldn't be any fun if they fell over with their legs in the air, would it?

Brian : I'll stick with the brew.

Doug : Beer is for breakfast around here, drink or be gone.

[Jordan has returned to her father's Park Avenue penthouse to find Brian arguing with him] 

Brian : I think there's a chance for us.

Jordan : Brian, there is no "us." There's too many things about "us" that don't work.

Brian : What about the baby? A kid needs a father.

Jordan : Not one who's not going to be around in a year?

Mr. Mooney : Yeah, with your lifestyle, what kind of a father would you...

Jordan : Dad!

Brian : Listen, I'm sorry I called you a bitch.

Eleanor : Why? I am a bitch.

Brian : Not a goddamned thing any one of those professors says makes a difference on the street.

Doug : If you know that, you're ready to graduate.

Mr. Mooney : You're on your own.

Brian : That's the only way I want it.

Brian : [telling Bonnie he's moving out of her place]  I left a can of Spam in your refrigerator... I hope your Brewers Yeast doesn't take it personally.

Brian : [looking at Jordan's painting]  Is this our waterfall?

Jordan : No.

Brian : It's terrific.

Jordan : Yeah, it's all right. The name's Mooney, not Monet.

Bonnie : I've been thinking about you all day.

Brian : Really? A plane ride home will cure that.

Jordan : What are you doing here?

Brian : I bet you thought you'd never see me again.

Jordan : *Hoped* is a better word!

[first lines] 

Brian : Come on, put it to the floor! Come on! Let's go!

Brian : You wouldn't treat a stray dog like this.

Jordan : A stray dog can be *loyal*.

Brian : I can't *make it with my best friend's old lady.

Kerry Coughlin : Ami I supposed to live with the same man *forever and no one else in my life?

Brian : Yes! It's called *marriage.

Release Dates | Official Sites | Company Credits | Filming & Production | Technical Specs

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• Release Dates
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• Plot Summary
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12 Things You Might Not Know About Tom Cruise

By jake rossen | 8:01 am edt.

Defining movie star is somewhat subjective. If it’s a combination of charisma, audience interest, and box office success, then one of the few performers that continue to meet the definition is Tom Cruise. The actor, who has been on screens for over 40 years, regularly makes movies that are considered appointment viewing in theaters even in the era of streaming. His Mission: Impossible series alone has brought in over $1.3 billion domestically.

Part of Cruise’s appeal is his enigmatic public persona. He rarely lets his guard down, preferring to let his work speak for him. Nonetheless, there’s still plenty to know about his life and career.

Tom Cruise started doing stunts early on.

He was a pretty good high school wrestler., cruise auditioned for risky business with a chipped tooth., he didn’t love cocktail ., cruise directed an episode of television., cruise took heat for two adaptations., cruise could have been in the shawshank redemption ., cruise was involved in one of the longest film shoots of all time., he has a cousin who is also an actor., cruise rescued multiple people from maritime disaster., he asked to be included in a photo with some famous directors., cruise gifts colleagues with hundreds of holiday cakes..

Born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV on July 3, 1962, in Syracuse, New York, Cruise seemed to be drawn to physical activity and danger from an early age. In 2022, the actor recalled that when he was around 4 years old, he thought it would be a good idea to jump off the roof of his childhood home while using a sheet as a parachute. "It’s that moment when you jump off the roof and you go, ‘This is not gonna work,’” he said. “’This is terrible. I’m gonna die.’ And I hit the ground so hard. Luckily, it was wet … And I saw stars in the daytime for the first time, and I remember looking up, going, ‘This is very interesting.’”

Cruise’s mother, Mary, separated from his father, Tom Senior, in 1976, when Cruise was 14. (The actor would later allege that Senior had been abusive toward him.) The family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and Cruise also spent some time in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he briefly considered becoming a Franciscan priest. Eventually, he rejoined his family and they settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, where he joined the varsity high school wrestling team as a junior and senior. During the 1979-1980 year, the team went 14-4-1.

The wrestling may have indirectly played a role in his career choice. After a leg injury prevented him from continuing, he decided to investigate acting and signed up for a role in a school production of Guys and Dolls . “All of a sudden, I felt like I knew what I was doing,” he said in 1983. “And I got all this attention, and it just felt right. So I came to New York. I wanted to try [acting].”

In 1981, Cruise appeared in a small role in Endless Love and as a military cadet in Taps . Two years later, he appeared in the teen sex comedy Losin’ It and the football drama All the Right Moves . Cruise also scored a role as a street punk in The Outsiders . It was during filming of The Outsiders that Cruise auditioned for Risky Business , which cast him as a preppy kid who runs amok when his parents leave town. “I told them, ‘I can't afford to tamper with my Outsiders character because I have to work tonight,’” he said in 1983. “’I can't take a shower, even.’ I was all greasy, had a chipped tooth and a tattoo, and an Okie drawl. And they cast me for this clean-cut boy.”

Risky Business was considered Cruise's true breakout role. It also made Cruise synonymous with Ray-Ban sunglasses, which he later wore to great effect in 1986’s Top Gun .

The mid- to late-1980s was a period where Cruise was able to demonstrate his dramatic chops with prestige directors in films like 1985's Legend (Ridley Scott), 1986’s The Color of Money (Martin Scorsese), 1988’s Rain Man (Barry Levinson), and 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone). In the middle of this impressive run came Cocktail (1988), a relatively lightweight drama about a bartender who relocates to Jamaica. It was “not a crowning jewel,” he told Rolling Stone in 1992. The film earned a Golden Raspberry Award, or “Razzie,” for Worst Picture, the same year that Rain Man won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Given his collaborative nature and intense interest in filmmaking, it’s somewhat surprising Cruise has yet to helm a feature film. But he has gotten behind the camera. In 1993, Cruise directed an episode of the Showtime series Fallen Angels , an anthology set largely in 1940s and 1950s Los Angeles. In the episode, titled “The Frightening Frammis,” a con man (Peter Gallagher) has the misfortune to cross paths with a femme fatale named Babe (Isabella Rosellini). The series was produced by Sydney Pollack, who had just directed Cruise in the 1993 film The Firm .

When Cruise was cast as the vampire Lestat in 1994’s Interview With the Vampire , the book’s author, Anne Rice, was a vocal critic, saying she preferred someone like Daniel Day-Lewis for the role. After seeing Cruise in the part, Rice changed her mind, calling him “wonderful.” Cruise had a similar experience in 2012’s Jack Reacher , where fans of the Lee Child book series found him smaller in stature compared to Child’s towering protagonist. The film did well, however, meriting  a 2016 sequel, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back .

The list of movies Cruise has been offered (or at least had discussions about doing) is long, and the list of movies he’s turned down is likely even longer. Among them: Footloose , Edward Scissorhands , and The Shawshank Redemption . Director and writer Frank Darabont, who adapted the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption for the screen in 1994, said that producer Rob Reiner offered to acquire the script so he could direct and his A Few Good Men star Cruise could step into the role of Andy Dufresne. Darabont was tempted, but ultimately decided to make the movie himself. He cast Tim Robbins as Dufresne.

Cruise and then-wife Nicole Kidman agreed to star in director Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut , which examines the complicated marriage of a young couple tempted by forces outside their union. Kubrick ( 2001: A Space Odyssey ), a notorious perfectionist, shot the film for an astounding 15 months, far beyond the typical four- to six-month shoot of many films. Guinness World Records recognizes it as the longest continuous production in cinema history. (Interrupted shoots are a different story: Richard Linklater’s coming-of-age drama Boyhood shot for 39 days over a window spanning from 2002 to 2013.)

Eyes Wide Shut was met with a tepid reception, though it proved bountiful for Cruise. While on set, he met with director Paul Thomas Anderson, who cast him as a motivational speaker in 1999’s Magnolia . That part earned Cruise an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He had previously been nominated for Born on the Fourth of July and for Jerry Maguire (1996), though he has yet to win.

Cruise wasn’t the only member of his family to get into acting. His fraternal cousin, William Mapother, is also in the business and has shared several of Cruise’s film sets. Mapother was a production assistant before getting parts in Magnolia (1999) and in 2002’s Minority Report , playing a desk clerk who is threatened by Cruise’s distressed protagonist. Mapother might be best known as Ethan Rom, a character of dubious intentions on ABC’s drama Lost .

In 1996, Cruise and then-wife Nicole Kidman were aboard a yacht near Capri, Italy, when they came upon a family floating in a lifeboat whose own yacht had caught on fire. They climbed aboard Cruise’s vessel until the Coast Guard arrived.

A decade prior, it was Cruise himself who needed a hand. While filming Top Gun , he was dragged underwater by parachute lines. According to United Press International, Navy swim school instructors rushed to pull him out.

Shooting The Last Samurai with Cruise in 2003, director Ed Zwick was surprised to see several A-list directors dropping by the set to see Cruise. When the actor learned that David Fincher ( Fight Club ), Cameron Crowe (who directed Cruise in Jerry Maguire ), and others posed for a group photo with Zwick while he was busy, he asked that he be retroactively placed in the image.

To work with Tom Cruise is to risk being sent a cake every holiday for the rest of your life. (Or his.) Each year, the actor orders white chocolate coconut Bundt cakes from Doan’s Bakery in Los Angeles and has them sent to a list of recipients, including former co-stars. According to former talk show host James Corden, Cruise himself has never tried the cake. (Other stories, however, have him tasting it as part of a “cake-off” while Cruise’s then-wife Katie Holmes and Diane Keaton were making a film together in 2008. The cake was reportedly Keaton’s favorite.)

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