10 Ways Jerry Maguire Could've Been A Better Movie

1) As it is Cameron Crowe wrote and directed it and was one of 4 producers. They could've fired Crowe before shooting started, gotten Robert Towne and some other rewrite experts in there and completely re-written the whole thing; or better yet, just used an entirely different script altogether. For Jesus' sake, don't make every character sound like Cameron Crowe!

2) It could have been Avery (Kelly Preston), Jerry's finacee briefly at the start of the movie, who had the nervous breakdown and then the "vision" about sports agents being... something, instead of what they are. Avery could've broken up with Jerry (in the film it's the other way around), joined the agency, then quit very soon. Jerry could remain an agent like agents are in real life, and the film could be a realistic portrayal of a sports management company, neither idealizing nor unrealistically condemning the industry, with occasional shots of Avery on her Crusading quest as comic relief.

2a) This raises the interesting question of whether Dorothy (Renée Zellweger), who in the film leaves the management company with Jerry and later develops a romantic relationship with him, will leave with Avery, and still eventually develop that relationship with Jerry. This would give Dorothy's character much more to do than in the film as is, where pretty much all she does is wait around for Jerry to sweep her further off of her feet.

3) The scene where Rod (Cuba Gooding Jr), an NFL wide receiver and the only one of Jerry's clients who leaves the company with him, gets up on his feet after an apparent injury in a "Monday Night Football" game, and dances all over the place in front of a wildly cheering crowd, proving that he finally understands what Jerry (or Avery in the alternate version) has been telling him all along? No. Just no.

4) Get that guitar away from Frank "Cush" Cushman (Jerry O'Connell), another one of Jerry's clients, who wavers for a while but decides to stay at the agency instead of staying with Jerry, and keep it far away from him as long as the cameras are rolling.

5) Include a long angry rant by someone directly into the face of Jerry or Avery or whoever it is who has written that manifesto about "quality" in sports management. The angry rant is about how the job of a sports agent is not about "quality," but quantity: the number of dollars, Euros, pounds, Yen or what have you, which the client receives. The angry ranter could point out that if the manifesto writer is really interested in quality, there are a lot of volunteer positions open in the world's disaster zones. The ranter will definitely denounce American collegiate athletics as possibly the most monumental and shameless rip-off of athletes in the history of the world so far. You could give that rant to Sugar (Jay Mohr), Jerry's protégé who stays at the firm, is selected by management to fire Jerry, and systematically takes all of Jerry's clients except Rod. The rant would give Sugar's character more complexity, making him less of a one-dimensional weasel. (Of course, this and a lot of my other suggestions assume that you agree with me that Jerry's manifesto is ridiculous. If you agree, then you've just about got to take suggestion 1 at the least.)

6) Jerry's relationship with Ray (Jonathan Lipnicki), Dorothy's son, would be much more interesting if Ray started out hating Jerry. Give Jerry's character more work to do. Or,

6a) Eliminate Ray and a few other characters. There are too many characters all trying to be special for one movie. Pick yr battles.

7) Another long angry rant, this one about the stupidity, hypocrisy, brutality and infantilism of sports, and about how athletes, coaches, sports journalists, team owners, cheerleaders, super-fans, etc, etc, are generally every bit as empty and horrible as agents, although agents are much less likely to be revered, for some reason. This rant could also be delivered by Sugar, or someone else.

8) NO BONNIE HUNT! If you don't eliminate the character (Laurel, Dorothy's sister), then at least re-cast the role. It's interesting: I was just on Roger Ebert's website, researching, trying to comprehend just why so many people mistakenly think this movie is any good. Ebert called Hunt "almost always a delight to watch." I've never been the slightest bit delighted to watch Bonnie Hunt, and I'm right and Ebert was wrong.

9) In the movie as is, Jerry and Rod supposedly both become much more deep and less concerned about money; and as a result of this, of course, they end up striking it rich. Shit or get off of the pot; either stop preaching against a concern with money (or keep that nonsensical preaching in the mouths of comic relief like Avery if it's Avery who has the breakdown, writes the manifesto and strikes off on her own), or show the characters actually having to live on much less money, but still being happier. For instance, maybe Rod has a career-ending injury before he gets that big payday; and then later we see him as a high-school football coach, or maybe in some other modestly-paying job: and he's happier. (My feeling is that more money definitely will make you happier, and will until we pivot to that Gene Roddenberry-style post-economic world; and that anyone who tells you different is either poor and in denial, or rich and so emotionally fucked-up that not even money helped.)

10) Let Jerry and Dorothy be much more flawed. Because people are deeply flawed. Always. Cuba Gooding was in a very good movie about the same time he was in Jerry Maguire: James L Brooks' As Good As It Gets, a film in which characters have horrible personal problems, and don't solve those horrible problems, but still achieve some significant triumphs and improve their lives. In other words: A realistic cheesy mainstream feel-good movie about rich white people.

Jerry Maguire Is The Worst Movie I've Ever Seen

Jerry Maguire is the stupidest movie I've ever seen, so show me the money because you had me at "Hello."

You complete me. If this is empty, this doesn't matter. I love him for the man he wants to be. And I love him for the man he almost is. Success consists of simply getting up one more time than you fall. I am out here for you. You don't know what it's like to be ME out here for YOU. It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing siege that I will never fully tell you about, okay? Did you know that the human head weighs 8 pounds? Did you know that Troy Aikman, in only six years, has passed for 16,303 yards? D'you know that bees and dogs can smell fear? Did you know that the career record for hits is 4,256 by Pete Rose who is NOT in the Hall of Fame? D'you know that my next door neighbor has three rabbits? I... I can't compete with that! Hey, I don't have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you my kind of success. What do you want from mw? My soul? Why not? I deserve that much.

But if anybody else wants to come with me, this moment will be the ground floor of something real and fun and inspiring and true in this godforsaken business and we will do it together! Who's coming with me besides... "Flipper" here?

I'm fucked. Twenty-four hours ago, man, I was hot! Now... I'm a cautionary tale. You see this jacket I'm wearing, you like it? Because I don't really need it. Because I'm cloaked in failure! I lost the number one draft picked the night before the draft! Why? Let's recap: Because a hockey player's kid made me feel like a superficial jerk. I ate two slices of bad pizza, went to bed and grew a conscience! Have you ever gotten the feeling that you aren't completely embarassed yet, but you glimpse tomorrow's embarrassment? This is going to change everything. Promise? How about a little piece of integrity in this world that is so full of greed and a lack of honorability that I don't know what to tell my son! Except, "Here. Have a look at a guy who isn't yelling 'Show me the money." Did you know he's broke? He is broke and working for you for free! Broke. Broke, broke, broke. I'm sorry I'm just not as good at the insults as she is.

A positive anything is better than a negative nothing. Anyone else would have left you by now, but I'm sticking with you. And if I have to ride your ass like Zorro, you're gonna show me the money. You are hanging on by a very thin thread and I dig that about you! Maybe love shouldn't be such hard work. Jump in my nightmare, the water's warm! I won't let you get rid of me. On the surface, everything seems fine. I've got this great guy. And he loves my kid. And he sure does like me a lot. And I can't live like that. It's not the way I'm built. I got a shelf life of ten years, tops. My next contract's gotta bring me the dollars that'll last me and mine a long time. Shit, I'm out of this sport in 5 years. What's my family gonna live on? Huh? There is a sensitivity thing that some people have. I don't have it. I don't cry at movies, I don't gush over babies, I don't buy Christmas presents 5 months early, and I DON'T tell the guy who just ruined both our lives, "Oh, poor baby." But I do love you. Dorothy, this is not a guy. It's a syndrome. Early mid-life. Hanging on to the bottom rung. "Dear God, don't let me be alone or I call my newly-long-suffering-assistant-without-medical for company settlement." If now all you still want is him to come over, I'm not saying anything. I'll tell you why you don't have your ten million dollars. Because right now, you are a paycheck player, you play with your head and not your heart, your personal life is all heart but when you get on the field, it's all about what you didn't get, who's to blame, who under threw the pass, who's got the contracts you don't, who's not giving you your love. That's not what inspires people. Just shut up and play the game with your heart. America still sets the tone for the world of sports, in Indiana I signed Clark Hodd, he's only thirteen years old and is considered the best point guard in the country and last week he scored a hundred points in a single game. I also signed Erica Sorgi, you'll see her in the next Olympics. In Seattle I signed Dallas Malloy, she's sixteen years old and her lawsuit helped paved the way for women boxers everywhere, whenever she fights she thinks about her ex-boyfriend. In Indio, California I signed Art Stallings. He plays the sport with what pure joy. In Odessa, Texas I signed the great Frank Cushman. This April twenty six teams will be falling all over themselves in order to sign him in the next NFL draft. He's my client, my most important client, believe me there's genius everywhere but until they turn pro it's like popcorn in the pan: some pop, some don't. I'm the guy you don't usually see. I'm the one behind the scenes. I'm the sports agent, you know those photos where the new player holds the team jersey and poses with the owner? Inside that building, that's where I work: S.M.I., Sports Management International, thirty three out of shape agents, guiding the careers of one thousand five hundred eighty five of the most finely tuned athletes alive. I handle the lives and dreams of seventy two clients and I get an average of two hundred sixty four phone calls a day, that's what I do, this is what I do best, but I'll be honest with you. I started noticing a few years ago and I didn't say a word but the quest for the big dollars and a lot of the little things were going wrong, but lately, it's gotten worse. Who did I become? Just another shark in a suit? Two days later at our corporate conference in Miami a breakthrough, a breakdown? No a breakthrough. I had so much to say and no one to listen and then it happened: an unexpected thing: I began writing what they call a "mission statement." Not a memo, a "mission statement." A suggestion for the future of our company a night like this doesn't come around very often. I seized it. What started out as one page slowly became twenty five, suddenly, I was my father's son again I was remembering the simple pleasures of this job: how I ended up here out of law school, the way a stadium sounds when one of my players performs well on the field the way we are meant to protect them in health and in injury. With so many clients we've forgotten what's important. I wrote, and wrote and wrote and I'm not even a writer. I was even remembering the original words of my mentor the late great Dicky Fox. Suddenly it was all clear: the answer was fewer clients and less money, giving more attention to them, caring for them, caring for ourselves. I'll be the first to admit it: what I was writing was somewhat "touchy feely." I didn't care. I had lost the ability to bullshit, it was the me I always wanted to be. I put the mission statement into a bag and took it to a copymat in the middle of the night, printed a hundred and ten copies. Even the cover looked like The Catcher in the Rye. I entitled it: The Things We Think And Do Not Say, The Future of Our Business.

Like I said: the stupidest. The worst. (I still haven't completely forgiven Cuba Gooding. Not for "Show me the money!" That's what an agent is for. It's the only thing an agent is for. What upsets me is that Gooding's character eventually falls for Maguire's nonsense about there being more to it than that.) Then again, it's the only Cameron Crowe movie I've watched all the way through.