tom cruise jamaica movie

10 Stirring Facts About Cocktail

By roger cormier | jan 23, 2017.

One of cinema's greatest guilty pleasures, Cocktail starred Tom Cruise as Brian Flanagan, a young man who unexpectedly achieves some fame as a "flair bartender" in New York City along with his mentor, Doug Coughlin (Bryan Brown). Brian eventually takes his bottle-flipping skills down to Jamaica, where he falls for Jordan (Elisabeth Shue), a vacationing artist. Here are some facts about the Tom Cruise staple, in accordance with Coughlin's Law.

1. BRIAN FLANAGAN WAS ALMOST TWICE AS OLD IN THE BOOK.

Yes, Cocktail was originally a novel; it was written by Heywood Gould, and based on the dozen years he spent bartending to supplement his income as a writer. Whereas Tom Cruise's Brian Flanagan is in his twenties, Gould's protagonist was described as a "38-year-old weirdo in a field jacket with greasy, graying hair hanging over his collar, his blue eyes streaked like the red sky at morning." As Gould told the Chicago Tribune , "I was in my late 30s, and I was drinking pretty good, and I was starting to feel like I was missing the boat. The character in the book is an older guy who has been around and starting to feel that he's pretty washed-up." Disney and Gould—who adapted his book for the screen—fought over making Brian Flanagan younger, with Gould eventually relenting .

2. THERE WERE AT LEAST 40 DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SCRIPT.

The script went through a couple of different studios, and dozens of iterations. According to Gould , "there must have been 40 drafts of the screenplay before we went into production. It was originally with Universal. They put it in turnaround because I wasn't making the character likable enough. And then Disney picked it up, and I went through the same process with them. I would fight them at every turn, and there was a huge battle over making the lead younger, which I eventually did."

Bryan Brown explained that when Cruise came on board, the movie "had to change. The studio made the changes to protect the star and it became a much slighter movie because of it."

Kelly Lynch, who played Kerry Coughlin, was much more forthright about how Gould's vision for the story changed under Disney, telling The A.V. Club :

"[Cocktail] was actually a really complicated story about the ’80s and power and money, and it was really re-edited where they completely lost my character’s backstory—her low self-esteem, who her father was, why she was this person that she was—but it was obviously a really successful movie, if not as good as it could’ve been. It was written by the guy who wrote Fort Apache The Bronx, and it was a much darker movie, but Disney took it, reshot about a third of it, and turned it into flipping the bottles and this and that."

3. FOR A BRIEF SECOND, DISNEY WASN'T COMPLETELY SOLD ON TOM CRUISE IN THE LEAD.

Recounting the kind of story that only happens in Hollywood, Gould told the Chicago Tribune about one of his early meetings with Disney heads Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg. "Someone mentioned that this might be a good vehicle for Tom Cruise," Gould recalled. "Eisner says, 'He'll never do this, don't waste your time, he can't play this part.' And then Katzenberg says, 'Well, he's really interested in doing it,' and without skipping a beat Eisner says, 'He's perfect for it, a perfect fit!' That's the movie business: I hate him, I love him; I love him, I hate him!"

4. BRYAN BROWN'S AUDITION WAS "DREADFUL."

Director Roger Donaldson specifically wanted Bryan Brown to audition for the role of Doug. Brown flew from Sydney to New York and, almost immediately after his 20-plus-hour flight, was sitting in front of Donaldson. "He did the audition and he was dead tired and it was dreadful," Donaldson said . "After he did it I was like, ‘Bryan, do yourself a favor—we’ve got to do it again tomorrow.’ And he said, ‘No, no, I’m catching a plane back tonight.’ I couldn’t persuade him to stay and do it again, so I didn’t show anybody the audition." Instead, Donaldson told the producers and studio to watch Brown's performance in F/X (1986); clearly, they liked what they saw.

5. CRUISE AND BROWN PRACTICED THEIR FLAIR BARTENDING, AND USED REAL BOTTLES ON SET.

Los Angeles TGI Friday's bartender John Bandy was hired to train Cruise and Brown after he served a woman who worked for Disney who was on the lookout for a bartender for Cocktail . Bandy trained the two stars in the bottle-flipping routines , and Gould took Cruise and Brown to his friend's bar to show them the tricks they used to do . Donaldson claimed they used real bottles—and yes, they did break a few .

6. JAMAICA WASN'T KIND TO TOM CRUISE

The Jamaica exteriors were shot on location, where it was cold, and Cruise got sick. When he and Shue had to shoot a love scene at a jungle waterfall, it wasn't pleasant. "It’s not quite as romantic as it looks,” Cruise told Rolling Stone . “It was more like ‘Jesus, let’s get this shot and get out of here.’ Actually, in certain shots you’ll see that my lips are purple and, literally, my whole body’s shaking.”

7. THE FILM SCORE WAS ENTIRELY REWRITTEN IN A WEEKEND.

Three-time Oscar winner Maurice Jarre ( Lawrence of Arabia ) was Cocktail 's original composer, but the producers didn't think his score "fit in" with the story. They particularly didn't like one cue, so they called in J. Peter Robinson to fix it. Donaldson liked what Robinson did so much, that he asked the composer to take over and do the rest of the work. "All this was happening on a Friday," Robinson said . "I was starting another film on the following Monday and told Roger that I was going to be unavailable. 'We're print-mastering on Monday, mate!!' Roger said. So from that point on I stayed up writing the score and delivered it on Monday morning at around five in the morning."

8. "KOKOMO" WAS WRITTEN FOR THE MOVIE.

While it was The Beach Boys, by then minus Brian Wilson, that recorded the song which brought the group back into the spotlight, "Kokomo" was penned by John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas; Scott McKenzie, who wrote “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)”; producer Terry Melcher, Doris Day's son; and Mike Love. Phillips wrote the verses, Love wrote the chorus, and Melcher penned the bridge. The specific instructions were to write a song for the part when Brian goes from a bartender in New York to Jamaica. Off of that, Love came up with the "Aruba, Jamaica ..." part .

9. ROGER DONALDSON IS SORRY ABOUT "DON'T WORRY BE HAPPY."

Bobby McFerrin's "Don't Worry, Be Happy" hit number one thanks to its inclusion on the Cocktail soundtrack. The director heard the song on the radio one day while driving to the set. “I heard it and thought it would be perfect for the film," he said . "And suddenly it was everywhere. Sorry about that."

10. THE REVIEWS—INCLUDING TOM CRUISE'S—WERE HARSH.

To conclude his two-star review, Roger Ebert wrote , "The more you think about what really happens in Cocktail, the more you realize how empty and fabricated it really is." Richard Corliss of TIME said it was "a bottle of rotgut in a Dom Perignon box."

In 1992, even Tom Cruise admitted that the movie "was not a crowning jewel" in his career. And Heywood Gould wasn't pleased with it at first either. "I was accused of betraying my own work, which is stupid," Gould said . "So I was pretty devastated. I literally couldn't get out of bed for a day. The good thing about that experience is that it toughened me up. It was like basic training. This movie got killed, and then after that I was OK with getting killed—I got killed a few more times since then, but it hasn't bothered me."

New Road House Movie Proves It’s Time To Remake Tom Cruise’s 36-Year-Old Thriller With 9% On Rotten Tomatoes

• Modern reinterpretation of classic '80s movies, like the Amazon Prime Road House remake, can be successful and pave the way for more updates.
• A Cocktail remake could improve on the original's flaws with strong lead, action, and romance, following the success of Road House.
• Including a Tom Cruise cameo in a Cocktail remake could honor the original's legacy and capitalize on nostalgia for the '80s film.

The success of the Amazon Prime Road House remake perfectly demonstrates that a modern take on an oft-forgotten Tom Cruise movie from 36 years ago could also benefit from a modern reinterpretation. While far from perfect, Road House 's reviews are good enough to validate the remake's existence, while also paving the way for other classic '80s movies to receive the update treatment. Additionally, the Road House 2 tease , suggests the entertainment industry isn't quite done with modernizing classic action thrillers, further highlighting the potential for other '80s movie remakes.

Many of Tom Cruise's best movies are from the 1980s, but one movie in particular is among one of his most poorly received movies to date. As such, its legacy could actually benefit from a remake, as it isn't uncommon for remakes of classic movies to be better than the original. Furthermore, as demonstrated by the recent success of Top Gun: Maverick , it's very possible that a modern remake of the late '80s critical disaster in Cruise's filmography could benefit from a modern retelling. As such, one Cruise movie from the '80s needs a remake after Road House 's success .

All 11 Fight Scenes In Road House 2024, Ranked

Road house 2024's success proves a remake of tom cruise's cocktail movie could work, cocktail's similar vibe and setting are already perfect for a remake..

Based on the Heywood Gould novel of the same name, Cocktail sees Cruise as a New York City business student who takes up bartending in Jamaica to make ends meet. Filled with beautiful scenery and a unique cast of characters, Cocktail is unfortunately marred by a confusing message, as the movie's emphasis on Cruise's Brian Flanagan making money overshadows the forced love subplot between himself and Elisabeth Shue's Jordan Mooney. As such, a remake of Cocktail could work well since it would be the perfect chance to restructure its themes .

Cocktail 's remake would need a strong lead, compelling action, and believable romance to improve its predecessor's failures.

With a similar laid-back vibe combined with the ridiculousness of most '80s thriller movies , a Cocktail remake for modern audiences could maintain its unique Jamaican location and underdog protagonist, while blending it with modern romantic storytelling devices. Jake Gyllenhaal's Road House remake worked because it demonstrated that it was capable of keeping the good elements from the past, such as its location and hard-as-nails protagonist, while updating them with modern martial arts sensibilities and romantic storytelling. Cocktail 's remake would need a strong lead, compelling action, and believable romance to improve its predecessor's failures.

Cocktail's Divisive Legacy Would Give A Remake A Bigger Advantage Than Road House 2024

Road house needed to remain as faithful to its original movie as possible..

Cocktail isn't as fondly remembered as Road House , so a remake could be good for its legacy , and while the 1989 Road House isn't a critical darling, it still has a dedicated following that admires it greatly despite its flaws. As such, the remake needed to remain somewhat faithful to it. Cocktail is not as beloved, so a competent remake might actually be better for a proposed remake. Aside from possible cameos by Cruise and Shue, virtually nothing from the original Cocktail would need to be in a remake, which is a stark difference from Road House .

Who Could Play Tom Cruise's Character In A Cocktail Remake?

Just as Jake Gyllenhaal has proven to be a worthy replacement for Patrick Swayze's original iconic Dalton , there are plenty of candidates who could fill Tom Cruise's shoes in a Cocktail reboot. In the 1988 movie, Cruise's Brian is typified by his youthful charisma and hot-headedness . While he is ultimately driven by his dream of having his own string of successful franchise bars, he is also impulsive and motivated by his passionate relationship with Elizabeth Shue's Jordan . Throughout the story, he looks up to the older Doug as a source of inspiration – despite problematic aspects to his personality.

Road House 2024 Ending Explained

Because of Brian's arc, the ideal replacement would be someone youthful enough to be believable as a man at the start of his professional journey with a track record of portraying difficult relationships with mentor figures. After his performance in Top Gun: Maverick , Miles Teller could be a great option , and would be a satisfying nod to Cocktail 's Cruise-centric origins. Another choice could be Spider-Man star Tom Holland , who has both shown himself capable of embodying a difficult mentor/mentee relationship with Tony Stark and also displayed his bartending skills in Uncharted . Both candidates could bring something unique and interesting to Brian.

Tom Cruise Could Still Appear In A Cocktail Remake

Unlike Road House , which was sadly limited by Patrick Swayze's untimely passing in 2009, a Cocktail remake could potentially feature a cameo from original star Tom Cruise. Given Cruise's age, it would not make sense for him to return and play Brian Flanagan again – unless the film took a completely different approach to the story. However, including Cruise in a brief cameo could be a great way for a Cocktail remake to honor the original's legacy while progressing the story forward.

By necessity, Road House almost entirely avoided explicit ties to the original film. Although Gyllenhaal and Swayze's characters share the same name, there is no room for other returnees like Sam Elliott's Wade Garrett . While this helps the film distinguish itself from its predecessor, it also means that it fails to fully capitalize on the potential of nostalgia. Cocktail may not have been as critically successful as Road House , but the movie's notoriety and contemporary box office success means that a Tom Cruise cameo can help a remake acknowledge its surprising impact.

Road House (2024)

Road House is a remake of the original 1989 film, which followed protagonist Dalton, a Ph.D. educated bouncer at the roughest bar in the south known as the Double Deuce. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Dalton, with two major changes including Dalton being a retired UFC fighter and the bar locale being in the Florida Keys.

Director Doug Liman

Release Date March 21, 2024

Studio(s) Silver Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Cast Bob Menery, Dominique Columbus, B.K. Cannon, Darren Barnet, Jake Gyllenhaal, Conor McGregor, Lukas Gage, Daniela Melchior, Arturo Castro, Jessica Williams, Beau Knapp, Billy Magnussen, Joaquim De Almeida

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Home > Films > C > Cocktail

Monday April 1st 2024

Cocktail | 1988

• Locations |
• New York City ;
• Toronto , Ontario ;
• Roger Donaldson
• Tom Cruise,
• Bryan Brown,
• Elizabeth Shue,
• Lisa Banes,
• Laurence Luckinbill,
• Gina Gershon

For a brief period in 1988, it began to feel like synchronised bartending was the coolest career option available thanks to Roger Donaldson ’s cautionary tale of choosing ambition over love.

Brian Flanagan ( Tom Cruise ), fresh out of the army, arrives in New York , via the inevitable Greyhound bus, with dreams of overnight riches.

There's not an auspicious start as he takes the subway to Vernon-Jackson Station in Queens to hook up with his only contact in the city, Uncle Pat who runs a local Irish pub in Long Island City .

‘Pat’s Place’ was a bar which stood at 10-37 Jackson Avenue on the corner of 50th Avenue. It's now unrecognisable – apart from the distinctive shape – after being spruced up as the hip Jackson's Eatery / Bar .

Despite Pat’s attempt to bring Brian down to earth, the aspiring tycoon has his sights firmly set on a career in Wall Street, or Madison Avenue, or ‘communications’…

He quickly discovers that he’s not remotely experienced enough to step straight into a high-end position and reluctantly settles for tending bar at night while studying during the day.

It’s more Brian’s charm and popularity with female customers than innate ability that get him a job from cynical Aussie Doug Coughlin ( Bryan Brown ) at the old TGI Friday bar on the East Side .

This stood at 1152 First Avenue at 63rd Street but the candy-striped awnings are long-gone and the premises now houses the Sherlock Holmes-themed Baker Street Pub .

For reasons of economy, the production was based in Toronto and the interior of the popular hangout was recreated in the studio here.

In Ontario too is ‘City College’ where Brian enrolls for a business course, which is Knox College at the University of Toronto .

Coughlin and Flanagan’s bottle juggling routine proves a great hit, oddly taking precedence over speedy service, and the pair are hired to tend bar at “the hottest saloon in town”.

The ‘town’, once again, is Toronto , where 'Cell Block', the blue-lit circular bar in which Brian flagrantly contravenes all manner of health and safety regulations by standing on the bar top to recite poetry, is the Rotunda of the Old Don Jail, 550 Gerrard Street East .

The Don Jail , east of the Don River in Toronto 's Riverdale neighbourhood, was built in 1864 as the Toronto Jail, with a capacity of 184 inmates. Before capital punishment was abolished in Canada , Toronto Jail was the site of twenty-six hangings, the last being as recently as 1962.

The Jail was renovated to serve as the administrative wing of Bridgepoint Active Healthcare in 2013, and its Rotunda is open to visitors.

Doug and Brian’s ambitious plans to open their own ‘Cocktails and Dreams’ establishment come to grief after a fist-swinging falling-out over the flirtatious and rich Coral ( Gina Gershon ).

Giving up on the dull business course, Brian heads to the West Indies for an apparently lucrative gig running a beach bar in Jamaica . The was the Dragon Beach Bar, Dragon Beach in Port Antonio , which went on to find fame under the name of, yes, the Cruise Bar. Sadly, it’s since closed.

You can still enjoy Dragon Beach itself and, a few miles east, you can visit Reach Falls , on the Drivers River , which is where Brian frolics with holidaying New Yorker Jordan Mooney ( Elizabeth Shue ).

In 2010, Tom Cruise returned to Port Antonio for the tropical island scene in Knight And Day , and you can see more of the town in the final Daniel Craig Bond movie, No Time To Die .

If you want to boogie the night away in the reggae-filled ‘Dance Cave’, well, that’s back in Toronto . This 'tropical' hideaway was filmed inside Lee’s Palace , 529 Bloor Street West .

Lee’s is also the rock venue where Sex Bob-omb perform in Edgar Wright ’s 2010 adaptation of Scott Pilgrim Vs The World .

A bad bet with Doug, who’s turned up on honeymoon with his wealthy new bride, leads Brian to enjoy a fling with the older – but rich, Bonnie ( Lisa Banes ).

Jordan, understandably humiliated, is on the first plane home, back to her job in a ‘New York’ diner.

Well, sort of. ‘Jerry’s Deli’, where she waits tables – and later gets to dump the day’s specials onto the contrite Brian, is the famous Lakeview Restaurant , 1132 Dundas Street West , Toronto .

This 24-hour eaterie dates back to 1932 and its period deco interior has appeared in Troy Duffy 's 1999 The Boondock Saints , the 2007 musical Hairspray , David Cronenberg 's 2012 Cosmopolis , with Robert Pattinson , and famously became 'Dixie Doug's', the faux-Southern pie restaurant in Guillermo Del Toro ’s Oscar-winning The Shape of Water .

Brian, now living with Bonnie back in New York , realises the terrible mistake he’s made. It’s outside a gallery alongside the old Regency Theatre, which stood at 1987 Broadway at West 68th Street in New York , that he drunkenly breaks up with her.

The Regency, which seems to be showing Casablanca , was indeed a rep house showing classic films. It closed in 1999 and the whole block has been rebuilt.

Jordan is in no mood to take Brian back but, after a wise word from Uncle Pat, he storms off to her family’s luxury apartment on – where else? – 'Park Avenue'.

That expansive lobby, where Brian has to get past the doorman, is actually that of the Canada Life Building, 330 University Avenue at Queen Street, in Toronto ’s Downtown core.

Once he gets up to the penthouse to confront Jordan’s father ( Laurence Luckinbill ), who tries to pay him off with a $10,000 cheque, the elegant blue and white living room is Lady Pellatt’s Suite in Casa Loma , 1 Austin Terrace at Spadina Road, on a bluff overlooking northern Toronto . The Suite has had a slightly warmer makeover than its clinical pale blue-and-white colour scheme in the film.

The mock-Gothic folly of Casa Loma has proved a real boon to the city’s film industry, featuring in countless productions, most famously as Professor Xavier’s Academy in Bryan Singer ’s first X-Men movie, but also in Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (again), David Cronenberg 's Dead Ringers , Keanu Reeves sci-fi Johnny Mnemonic , and Oscar-winning musical Chicago .

‘Hysteria’, the smart floating nightclub now run by Doug, is The Water Club , in a barge moored on the East River at East 30th Street , in New York 's Murray Hill .

Unless you want to hire the club, you've missed your chance for a romantic meal here. From 1982 to 2018, The Water Club operated as a restaurant but it's now used exclusively as a venue for private events.

Things are not going as well as they appear on the surface, and Brian finds himself hit by a dose of reality when he has to attend a funeral, held in St John’s Norway Cemetery , 256 Kingston Road at Woodbine Avenue, in Toronto . Picturesque and conveniently close to film studios, the cemetery has also been seen in Gus Van Sant 's 1995 To Die For , John Singleton 's Four Brothers , and Jim Sheridan 's Get Rich or Die Tryin' .

Visit The Film Locations

Flights: John F Kennedy International Airport , New York, NY 11430 ( tel: 718.244.4444 )

Visit: New York

Travel around: MTA

Visit: the Baker Street Pub , 1152 1st Avenue, New York, NY 10065 ( tel: 212.688.9663 )

Ontario | Toronto

Visit: Ontario

Visit: Toronto

Flights: Toronto Pearson International Airport , 6301 Silver Dart Drive, Mississauga, ON L5P 1B2 ( tel: 416.247.7678 )

Rail: Union Station

Getting around: Toronto Transit Commission (bus, subway, streetcar and paratransit)

Getting around: GO Transit (bus, train)

Visit: Lee’s Palace , 529 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M5S 1Y5 ( tel: 416.532.1598 )

Visit: Casa Loma , 1 Austin Terrace, Toronto, ON M5R 1X8 ( tel: 416.923.1171 )

Visit: Jamaica

VISIT: Port Antonio

Cast & Crew

Brian Flanagan

Bryan Brown

Douglas 'Doug' Coughlin

Elisabeth Shue

Jordan Mooney

Laurence Luckinbill

Traditional values trump glitz. Not for kids.

• Average 4.2

Information

© 1988 TOUCHSTONE PICTURES

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1988, Romance/Comedy, 1h 44m

What to know

Critics Consensus

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. Read critic reviews

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Cocktail videos, cocktail   photos.

Brian Flanagan (Tom Cruise) wants a high-paying marketing job, but needs a business degree first. Working as a bartender to pay for college, Flanagan is mentored by his veteran boss, Doug Coughlin (Bryan Brown). Together, their showy tricks and charisma command large crowds and tip payments -- until Flanagan and the cynical Coughlin have a falling out. Flanagan moves to Jamaica to raise enough money to open his own bar, where he falls in love with artist Jordan Mooney (Elisabeth Shue).

Genre: Romance, Comedy, Drama

Original Language: English

Director: Roger Donaldson

Producer: Robert W. Cort , Ted Field

Writer: Heywood Gould

Release Date (Theaters): Jul 29, 1988  original

Release Date (Streaming): Aug 10, 2016

Box Office (Gross USA): $77.3M

Runtime: 1h 44m

Distributor: Touchstone Pictures

Production Co: Touchstone Pictures, Interscope Communications

Sound Mix: Surround, Stereo

Cast & Crew

Brian Flanagan

Bryan Brown

Douglas 'Doug' Coughlin

Elisabeth Shue

Jordan Mooney

Laurence Luckinbill

Kelly Lynch

Kerry Coughlin

Gina Gershon

Roger Donaldson

Robert W. Cort

John Mellencamp

Original Music

J. Peter Robinson

Dean Semler

Cinematographer

Neil Travis

Film Editing

Donna Isaacson

John S. Lyons

Production Design

Art Director

Hilton Rosemarin

Set Decoration

Ellen Mirojnick

Costume Design

Heywood Gould

Screenwriter

News & Interviews for Cocktail

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Critic Reviews for Cocktail

Audience reviews for cocktail.

A classic that helped launch Tom Cruise's career. I have never seen this before but I really enjoyed it and I can see why many others also enjoyed it.

So hilariously bad I can't even explain it. There aren't words to describe how awful this is, but I think it's at least deliberately awful...there's no way anyone could've thought this wasn't going to be terrible while they were making it.

This is actually one of my favourite Tom Cruise films.

What has Mr Cruise done to blokes over the years huh. He made us all wanna join the military so we could play with fighter jets and have a cool nickname, play/hustle nine-ball for a living, be a NASCAR driver...but at one point he also made all men wanna become bartenders. The image...behind a slick neon lit bar, fast money and easy sex, who would say no?. Well the plot in this ever so 80's flick is a cocktail of drama in itself!. Kicks off as a loose dumb story about a young guy who learns to be a bartender and throws bottles around awful looking swanky yuppie/suit type bars. From there we get cheating, backstabbing and escapism to Jamaica where a soppy love story breaks out. More backstabbing follows as we proceed to more heartbreak and the involvement with older rich women, much more fun then. Yet more breakup, death of a friend and eventual makeup leading to the obvious happy ending. A veritable rollercoaster of a plot which is totally uninteresting and rather cringeworthy. Watching Cruise pose and strut around with his wide toothy grin and hair that can't decide to be straight or curly is somewhat painful at times. The bar scenes are really quite crap looking back, I remember how people thought this stuff was sooooo cool (laugh out loud!). The cast is also another odd cocktail of choice. Aussie Bryan Brown who never really made much of a splash in Hollywood is a bizarre choice. Whilst Shue was never very attractive in my book and hardly sells her character, so dreadfully vanilla and dull!! geez!!. Brown is just totally uncool and annoying whilst Shue is a wet fish. Add to that the constant flow of hyped over acting and mugging by Cruise...oh god it makes you wanna vomit in your Singapore Sling!. A film for the ladies I think as the only things that interested me was a few female arse shots and the thought of what life would be like as a sex toyboy for a rich middle aged business woman (I would of stuck it out). In places this film is very awkward to watch, bordering on embarrassing. So completely and utterly dated (in a bad way) and serves no purpose other than a history lesson on 80's social gatherings and what people thought was cool employment at the time. A time when Cruise's ego was sky high alongside his over acting, mind you what's new.

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Hollywood Comes Calling for Ocho Rios Again in Netflix's "Like Father"

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At this point, it’s hard to imagine any other exclusive resort destination with a stronger tie to big budget Hollywood productions than Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Already with a well-documented connection to James Bond and Hollywood icons like Tom Cruise, Ocho Rios’ latest brush with stardom is in Netflix’s most recent feature length film, “ Like Father .” Starring Kristen Bell (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”), Kelsey Grammer (“Frasier”), and Seth Rogan (“Knocked Up”), the recently released film starts off in New York City but quickly centers around a cruise vacation to Jamaica and one of Ocho Rios’ most popular attractions, the Blue Hole waterfall in the Blue Mountains.

Blue Hole Stars

Located just minutes away from downtown Ocho Rios, Blue Hole has long been a favorite of locals and visitors to Jamaica, as it cuts a path through the mountains before emptying into turquoise pools, thanks to a series of unforgettable waterfalls. In “Like Father,” Bell and Grammer, who play an estranged daughter and father, visit the waterfall as part of an excursion in Jamaica and share a cathartic moment of reconciliation with a backdrop of paradise in a tropical rainforest. Although the film is a comedy, the movie’s most sincere scenes take place at Blue Hole. Several other shots are also filmed in Ocho Rios, including the bumpy road trip and hike to the waterfalls and the kayak scene between Bell and Grammer. Blue Hole -- also known as Irie Blue Hole, Island Gully Falls, and Secret Falls -- is one of numerous picturesque waterfalls in Ocho Rios, though there are several others that are just as popular and with even more cinematic history.  

Ocho Rios’ Film History

Tom Cruise and Elisabeth Shue snuggled romantically at Ocho Rios’s most popular waterfall, Dunn’s River Falls, in the 1980s classic “Cocktail,” and one of cinema’s most iconic moments, a bikini-clad Ursula Andress emerging from the crystalline waters of the Caribbean in James Bond’s “Dr. No,” took place at Laughing Waters waterfall which empties into the sea. All that and we haven’t even mentioned the origins of the James Bond character from writer Ian Fleming’s imagination, born just miles from Ocho Rios in Oracabessa, or Jamaica’s most popular comedy, “Cool Runnings,” after which a bobsled ride was built on nearby Mystic Mountain .

Make Your Own Movie Magic

With all the cinematic history running through Ocho Rios, a stay at Moon Palace Jamaica next to the cruise port, will give you a chance to tour all or any of those venues. Explore the waterfalls on excursions and tours (you can even use Resort Credit for some), recreate movie scenes, including the kayak scene from “Like Father” by departing from the resort itself, and even engage in water activities like FlowRider , which was also featured in the movie. Not only movie stars get to have fun in Ocho Rios!

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Cocktail (1988).

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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.

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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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Movie Review | ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ – Setting the summer movie bar high

For the longest time Top Gun seemed a relic of a bygone ‘80s era. An action film with a cheesy title, grown men parading around with ridiculous nicknames, and an inexplicable volleyball scene. Yet by all accounts, Top Gun has stood the test of time, with its audience growing fonder of it as the years go by. With the original being so iconic, can its sequel recapture the magic?

With Top Gun: Maverick the answer is a resounding yes. The film is set 36 years since the original the film yet sees a returning Tom Cruise who looks to have aged only 10. Cruise’s Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell has burned too many bridges in the Navy, and his latest stunt sees him at risk of being grounded for good. His punishment is to train the next generation of elite pilots to pull off the most dangerous mission they’ve ever faced.

All that there is to love about Top Gun is present in the sequel. The new film is exceptionally good at setting stakes, while its plot is informed by its characters. As can be expected, Top Gun: Maverick is paced brilliantly and feels like the result of a fine-tuned effort. The only drawback to speak of is the film’s predilection for the predictable. Surprise may not be in store for the avid viewer, but as familiar as its beats may be, the execution of its story puts ‘Maverick’ a cut above the rest.

Not to mention the action is superb, helped in no doubt by the lead actor’s insistence that he and his co-stars undergo flight training for the film. Tom Cruise may very well be certifiable. His commitment to practical action may border on a debilitating obsession. He may be endangering himself and others in his pursuit of grounded action, but the end result is worth every penny.

Top Gun: Maverick is an exhilarating experience that more than makes up for the near four decades since the original film. The film knows exactly what it wants to be, giving a meaningful follow-up to the story of Top Gun while giving its new cast more than enough room to develop their characters. Top that off with some incredible action that puts the audience front and centre to the mayhem. The summer of 2022 may have just begun, but the bar is already set exceedingly high.

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Rating: Big Screen Watch

Damian Levy is a film critic and podcaster for Damian Michael Movies.

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