How Have I Not Seen This? Jerry Maguire (1996)

Jerry Maguire is one of those movies that I'm sure almost everyone has seen, but I haven't. Of course I've seen a ton of clips from it and have heard all the famous lines that spawned out of it. Even so, I've never managed to watch it for myself. Looking at it, I was wondering how much my knowledge and opinion of Tom Cruise would affect my opinion of the movie, or if it would at all? I really didn't know anything about the details of the story beyond knowing he yells "SHOW ME THE MONEY!" at one point. But I didn't even know why. Hit the jump for my thoughts on this classic 90s movie as I find out for myself.


Jerry Maguire is one of the top sports agents in the business. Unfortunately, over the years he's become cold and heartless and all about bringing in the next contract. He's lost sight of his clients as people, and sees them only as paychecks. One night, after coming to this realization, he writes a 25 page mission statement saying that the company should have fewer clients, and make less money, so that they can devote more time to treat their clients properly. This of course gets him fired, and he is forced to start out on his own, with the only client who decided to stick with him.

He doesn't look so crazy after all

I must say, I really enjoyed almost everything about this movie. I really liked the story, which also had a romantic side to it as well, but don't they all? I liked it because it felt like the characters could be real people. They all had flaws and personalities that you really got to know. You could tell how they would react to certain situations, you could tell what they were thinking just by the looks they gave each other.Turns out, my opinion of Tom Cruise didn't factor in at all, and I totally just bought into the character of Jerry Maguire. It also made me realize I kinda miss a good Tom Cruise movie. Why'd you have to go crazy Tom? Why?

I brushed past the romantic part of the story, but I do want to bring it up more. I actually really enjoyed that part of the story and I thought it worked really well. It also doesn't hurt that I think Renée Zellweger is super cute and pretty damn attractive, especially in this movie. Also at the heart of the relationship plot is this little boy who is supposed to be Renée Zellweger's son, and he's the cutest damn little kid I think I've ever seen in a movie. Also, can I just say that while I had definitely heard the line before, I never knew the "You had me at hello" came from this movie, and it was sooooo awesome to hear it pop up when I totally wasn't expecting it to. If you haven't noticed, I really love witnessing where those classic movie quotes come from and in full context of the film.

I completely recommend this movie to anyone who likes a decent drama with a bit of a love story. There's some cute comedy bits with the kid, and even some pretty good football towards the end of the film. There's something for everyone. The character arcs were satisfying, and almost every single character had some kind of arc and development in the movie. Even the loud wife of the football player Maguire is representing in the film. This is a really well rounded movie, and it's just really good. I wouldn't say it's the best movie I've ever seen, but I did enjoy it, and if you haven't seen it, definitely check it out!