An essay about a movie that doesn’t exist but requires you to have seen real movies that I’ll pretend don’t exist.
Cinema attendants come down the aisles with palette knives unsticking attendees from their seats like gum on a pavement. Ping ping. Like popcorn, patrons are burst free and into the world again. As I await my unsticking, my skin also sunk deep into the red plush recliner, I think back to how I ended up here. Only a mere 2h 11m earlier I sat down a boy. Once chiselled free, I will emerge a man.
Put yourself in my shoes. It is summer 2022. You leave the cinema with perspiration still on your face and your heart still beating to the rhythm of Kokomo by the Beach Boys. You’ve just seen Tom Cruise reprise his iconic role, Brian Flanagan, thirty years later. You’ve just seen Tom Cruise resurrect the Hollywood blockbuster and redefine what a movie star is. You’ve just seen sixty year old Tom Cruise flirt. You’ve just seen Cocktail: Maverick.
I think back to the original film, a simple tale of a plucky young man who learns to make cocktails, goes to the Bahamas, comes back, gets a girl pregnant and starts a bar. It was the late 80’s. Bush had just beaten Dukakis. You had a mullet and a dream. Cruise was a nobody, yet to be defined by his countless generic action hero performances or his scientology fuelled sofa jumping, he was just a plucky boy with floppy hair and a monotooth smile, who also had a dream. The film was a revelation, making TC a star and a heartthrob.
When you think of Cruise today, he is either alone standing too close to an explosion, or next to a tall beautiful woman who has been forced to stand in a ditch. He is the lone heroic man that steps up when no one else can or does. It is his slender shoulders that are cgi’d bigger in order to rest the world’s fate on. It is him alone that has to stop the thing or do another thing, press the button or leave the button the heck alone, punch someone or punch someone. But back in the 80’s it was different. He had his wingman. You picture him with his taller lanky best friend, both often in front of a too close explosion, but equally comfortable doing things that friends do together like singing songs, giving each other nicknames, and standing next to each other without the taller one being stood in a ditch.
It’s the loss of his wingman that propels Cruise’s signature character Brian ‘Maverick’ Flanagan all these years later. He is a man torn apart by guilt.
The film’s narrative starts when the funding for Maverick’s mixology research program is pulled. He’s made a drink so bold it made corporate nervous and now they are shutting his ass down. The by-the-book government agent, played by Ed Harris, tells Brian that the future of bartending is in machines and not humans, that he’s a relic of the past, but somehow has been offered a teaching position back at the New York School for Mixology.
“Back to New York?” Brian repeats as the familiar tune of Kokomo by the Beach Boys begins to play.
“I’d take that job offer if I were you, Maverick. If I had my way, you’d never be behind a bar again. You’d be behind several.”
Brian turns dramatically to the window. He thinks about his wingman, Doug, who tragically died in New York in the first film. He hasn’t been back since. He takes a gulp of his drink, and the film cuts to him in a bar putting his drink down.
It’s the same bar from the first film. He’s not so much weighing up his decision, he knows he’s taking that teaching job, there’s nothing else for him, he’s just thinking about the world he grew up in and the world today. He swirls the whiskey in his glass. It’s mostly melted ice now. Maybe he is a relic. Soon the whole country will be switching to these cocktail machines. He’d be reduced to machine maintenance and handing out paper straws. He scoffs at the thought of a soggy straw in his drink. Back in his day, they wouldn’t entertain paper straws, they’d just hollow out a turtle spine and suck through that. Brian smiles.
The bartender sees his smile. “Someone’s had a good day.”
Brian looks up. Their eyes meet. It’s an old flame. He hasn’t seen her since the Bahamas. “I have now.”
I try to work out if she is supposed to be the love interest from the first film, played wonderfully by Elizabeth Shue. It’s not. This time the love interest is Penny played by Jennifer Connelly. I miss Shue, but Brian has moved on and so should we.
The pair flirt and reconnect. He asks about her relationship with her daughter, leaning forward to listen to the answer. She rings a bell at the bar and points to a sign that says ‘no hands on the bar’ — the room erupts as Brian is forced to buy everyone a round. Brian hands over a wodge of notes from his now significantly lighter wallet, smiling. It’s nice to be included, he thinks to himself. The pair continue flirting until she makes him laugh and he spills his drink slightly. She rings the bell again and shows him a sign that reads ‘no laughing’. The writing on the sign looks like it’s been scrawled in a hurry, but Brian’s all too willing to buy the room another round. She laughs playfully while Brian starts writing a check. It’s all just a bit of fun, he continues to think. A group of young men (and woman) across the bar cheer as another round of drinks are presented to them on Flanagan’s behalf. He asks for a napkin to clean up the beer and mop his sweaty brow. She rings the bell again. “No napkins” he’s told. Apparently, that sign needs repainting and is down at the shop. Brian laughs to himself, as if to say ‘of course’ or ‘no worries’ and she holds up the ‘no laughing’ sign and rings it again.
Unable to pay, Brian is escorted outside by some of the young men (and woman). “Thanks for the drinks, grandpa!” they jeer as he’s thrown into the outside snow. He peers through the window into the bar. His eyes move from Penny to the young men (and woman). They remind him of himself when he first moved to the city. Cocky and excitable. The muffled beginnings of a piano rendition of Kokomo by the Beach Boys echo out from inside. Brian’s mind flashes back and we see a clip from the original film. It’s Brian and Doug singing and playing that very song in that very bar. Brian snaps back to the present, with his gaze finding the piano. A head bobs up and down from behind. Brian jerks backwards away from the glass. His shoulders slump. It’s Bradley. It’s Doug’s son.
He must be here to enrol in the Mixology course. Brian scrunches up a snowball and throws it into the sky in rage. It flies a pitiful length. Cruise has never been good at dramatically throwing things, whether it’s an American football in Jerry Maquire or Doug’s bartending licence that is thrown into the ocean at the end of the original Cocktail, but bless him he knows not to let that get in the way of a moment.
Doug’s wife died young and as such Brian became Bradley’s legal guardian. Brian never wanted Bradley to get into bartending. He didn’t want to confine him to a life behind a bar, but to explore the wider world beyond the mahogany barrier that defined so much of Brian’s own life. To ensure this, on the eve of Bradley’s 21st birthday he legally changed Bradley’s age to be a decade younger. While successful in preventing Bradley from reaching his dream to bartend, their relationship soured as a result. Bradley now resents him, something about having to go through high school twice. He’s now 31, legally 21, and can both pour and drink alcohol. Walking home, Brian thinks about what he could do. Could he change Bradley’s age again, push the problem back another decade? He looks upon Bradley’s filled out moustache and shakes his head.
The film takes us to a disused cocktail bar, now used for training purposes. It’s the first day of school. Brian stands on top of the training bar as his pupils enter. It’s the men (and woman) from the prior night. They perch on bar stools, all red in the face with embarrassment bar Bradley who is red with anger. You’d be forgiven for thinking he’s embarrassed like the rest of them but it’s a slightly different shade. Jon Hamm is in this film. He stands in the corner pulling disapproving faces and telling everyone that walks past that he was real sexy in Mad Men.
Brian begins the class. “You know why you are here. Each of you have been scouted from the top graduate courses across the country. You are the best of the best. I’m here to teach you this.”
He holds up a book for the class. It’s ‘101 cocktails’.
“You’ll have read this book a thousand times, to even get into this room today you’ll know this book like the back of your hands, you’ll have learnt every single recipe so that you can mix them in your sleep.”
The room nods. Brian drops the book into a bin. “I need you to forget”.
He takes out a small flask from his jacket and pours into the bin. It splashes around the bin and onto Brian’s trouser leg. He drops a lighter in and the bin catches fire.
Hamm’s head falls into his hand. “I was in Mad Men” he mutters under his breath.
“We are being replaced. We are at the dawn of the mechanical age of bartending. They want me to teach you, so you can teach the machines. But I have one question. Did you get into bartending just for a customer to come in and get the drink they asked for?”
The students, uneasy, murmur to each other. Brian smiles.
“Let me make this easier for you. Are you machines?”
They know this one. “No” the whole room emphatically cheers. All except Bradley. Bradley knows he’s human, he’s just too busy scowling to listen to the question.
The fire rages within the bin and starts spreading across the stage. Brian is too busy playing to the crowd to notice.
“The machines are precise and will give the customer exactly what they want. I want you to do the opposite. I need you to make drinks that no machine could.”
He looks at Bradley.
“All of you”
Brian’s foot catches alight. The flames spread quickly up his trouser leg.
“Corporate don’t want me to tell you this -” He’s interrupted by Hamm extinguishing the flames on his leg. Hamm turns to the young men (and woman).
“Class dismissed”
“Be back in 20” a half-extinguished Brian shouts.
The students leave the training bar and go to a real bar. Hamm and Brian are left alone.
“You’re lucky Iceman runs the Mixology department here, if I was in charge, I’d run you out of town.”
Brian sulks in the training bar till the students return. Maybe he’s not cut out for being a teacher. He’d watched Dead Poets the night before and is kicking himself that he mixed up who out of the teacher and pupils was supposed to stand on tables. He sends a text to Iceman on his flip phone. We see the message over his shoulder, and it is a perfectly punctuated text that only a 60-year-old alien like Tom Cruise would send. A reply pops up straight away. They set a time and place to meet.
Brian continues sulking about the place. He’s dressed exactly the same as Bruce Springsteen on the Born in the U.S.A album cover and has been for the last 40 years. The jeans are surgically stitched into his skin.
The door for the fake bar opens, and Brian’s posture straightens up perfectly. He’s Maverick for them, not Brian. The students are back from a real bar and are drunk. They’ve started calling each other nicknames, emulating Brian’s moniker of Maverick. Instead of Jake, Reuben and Robert we’ve now got Hangman (great at talking to depressed men late at night), PayBack (quick to give refunds) and Bob (short for Robert).
Brian looks at Bradley “You too?”
“Rooster” he replies proudly.
Brian has another flashback to the first film, and we are shown a scene where Doug dresses up like a big Goose while Brian feeds him bread. I don’t remember this scene from the original, maybe it was cut?
Brian demonstrates how to make a cocktail for the class.
“Now these machines are good, no question. But we’ve got something else up our sleeve” He looks to Phoenix, the only female student, “What are you drinking?” “White Russian” she replies. He starts making it without dropping eye contact. “The machines are precise”. He sloshes some full fat milk at the cocktail shaker. “They rarely make mistakes”. The shaker tips and pours onto the floor. “But they lack something”. He takes a swing of vodka and spits it into the shaker. “Charisma”.
He pours a drink for Phoenix from the shaker. He keeps staring as she drinks it. “How is it?” he asks, already knowing the answer. The class lean in, eager for her response. Her voice wavers “It’s something.”
Brian shows the class the other tricks up his sleeve. He shows them the long pour. The short pour. The medium pour. He’s like a magician, distracting their eyes with all these flashy tricks while he minimises the amount of expensive liquor in each drink. “That’s how we beat the machines. Cost efficiency”. It’s the coolest someone’s ever tried to say ‘efficiency’.
Each student presents him with the best cocks they can tail. Brian walks down a line of them sampling each one. Every time he doesn’t like one, they have to do press ups for some reason. Kokomo by the Beach Boys plays. Bob presents a Banana Daiquiri. Mav spits it out and barks “get rid of the Daq. Just Banana.” Bob’s eyes widen as he whispers “Banana Banana” to himself. “Now give me 100!” Brian screams into his ear. Bob falls to the sticky floor obediently. Hangman passes over a Bloody Mary. Brian sips. “I like it, but it needs a twist” he grabs a knife from a chopping board next to a lemon and slices across his own palm. “Real blood” Hangman drops to the ground to do his press ups and picks up his jaw while he’s there. Rooster’s next and he’s just made a really good G&T. “Don’t think so much. You need to be bolder, Bradley, braver”. Hangman begins to cluck like a chicken, and the other students laugh.
Hangman’s arrogant, almost as much as Brian in the first film. Roosters much more like Doug. Brian can’t stand watching his son be bullied. “Class dismissed”. The students leave, leaving Brian to clean up. However, he’s just tasted like 15 cocktails, so instead has a little sleep behind the bar.
He wakes up late for his meeting with Iceman (named after serving a cocktail entirely filled with ice cubes and not having to refund) and we are treated to a scene of him peddling his bike furiously through New York traffic. Kokomo by the Beach Boys plays. The sun sets. It’s properly nicely shot. When the pair meet, Iceman, reprised by Val Kilmer, reveals to Brian that he is terminally ill. Due to Iceman’s throat cancer, the pair have to type to each other on a computer keyboard. It’s already emotionally charged just by seeing these two rivals back on screen as long-time friends, but it is pushed further by forcing Brian to slowly spell out his insecurities. Maverick can’t remain internal with his emotions, here he is pushed into dropping his mask of cool indifference, into being literal and sincere with his feelings regarding the teaching position. The man sitting next to me, nudges me and asks for a tissue. Iceman tells Brian to stick with the position, that he hired him for a reason. There’s an upcoming demonstration of the new cocktail machines for investors and he wants Brian’s students to make the case for human mixologists instead and outshine the machines.
The demonstration is in a month, and the team is not ready at all. They need to learn cold hard cocktail skills and fast, so Maverick takes them to the beach for some shirtless American football. Everyone’s a bit confused, including Maverick. Not knowing the rules to any sport, Maverick’s brought two footballs and insisted that they play with both directly in front of Penny’s house. Kokomo by the Beach Boys plays as Maverick demands everyone take off their shirts and grease him up with sunflower oil. It’s an odd scene watching the greased-up mixology students play football in slow motion but clearly effective. The man sitting next to me, nudges me and asks for a tissue.
Maverick runs over to Penny, who’s now watching from a deck chair. “Aren’t you teaching them to pour drinks?” she asks, shaking an empty glass. “I’m teaching them to be a team” he replies, looking over to the students all putting their shirts back on sheepishly.
We’re now shown about 5 training montages to really enforce the idea that they are now a team. Payback throws an ice cube to Phoenix. She catches it. A tray of cocktails slips from one hand but is rescued by another. Bob needs a knife, Hangman lobs one over. Rooster asks for a clean glass; Maverick whips his top off and throws a football. Kokomo by the Beach Boys plays.
It’s the start of a new day. The students enter hungover. Maverick is behind the bar waiting for them. “Hey Mav” they groan. “Sssh, just watch”. He cracks an egg into a pint glass and pours in tomato juice from a carton. The students watch with fascination as he crushes some pills in from a decent height. He downs it in one big gulp. “It’s a red eye, excellent for a hangover”.
Hamm stops the class. Demands the students be taught by the book. He asks PayBack to pass him a straw and a cocktail glass, PayBack jabs the straw deep into his palm drawing blood. “Jesus Mav!’ ‘What have you been teaching these kids?”
Class is dismissed again. Hamm takes Brian aside “I know the machines aren’t perfect. You think this is the bar I always dreamed of? But they work Brian. They’re effective, There’s no risk. There’re no complaints about bartenders trying to eye fuck customers anymore. Machines aren’t creepy Brian”.
Brian fires back immediately “You ever see Terminator? Huh? Machines can be creepy”.
“Please don’t start listing machines, Brian” Hamm holds up his hands like a lollipop man halting oncoming traffic, but Brian’s picked up speed, continuing- “C3Po- creepy. HAL- creepy, Data from Star Trek- creepy.” Hamm’s hands cover his entire face. The metaphorical lollipop man is dead. The words “I was in Mad Men.” are muffled, barely escaping his fingers.
When the students return, they are paired up. Brian talks to the class about the importance of having a wingman — flashes of Doug from the first film appear. We see Brian and Doug dancing together, throwing drinks and shakers between each other. They knew each other’s moves, they knew each other’s bodies, and the new recruits will have to learn the same. They need chemistry with each other.
Hangman and Rooster keep butting heads, both vying for best in show. Rooster is technically gifted but is holding back, while Hangman puts the cock in cocktail but is so self-centred he doesn’t play well in a team. They’re paired up for a bartending shift. Hangman refuses to pass the bottle opener, forcing Bradley to do it with his teeth. Maverick, watching, smiles at the sight of his son’s loose teeth on the bar floor.
Maverick and Rooster are growing closer and closer, rebuilding their broken relationship. The pair stay late one night. Rooster confronts Brian “I had to do SATs twice!” Brian pulls up a bar stool and shares the immortal words of his best friend, Rooster’s father, “There are two kinds of people in this world, the workers and the hustlers. The hustlers never work, and the workers never hustle”. Brian looks his adopted son in the eyes, and adds “I wanted you to hustle”. The man next to me sobs with such force I have to take the umbrella out of my cocktail and open it in his direction.
Brian leaves the training bar to head over to Penny’s very real bar. He’s paying off his debt by washing dishes in the evenings. Penny stays late watching his forearms working away from her office. When she’s suitably worked up, she takes him by the hand and the pair walk back to her home. They share a brief kiss on her porch before she goes inside.
The kiss is proper gross. It’s like TC, an alien, has quickly browsed a wikihow for kissing. They use their lips in a way that nobody has ever used them before, Brian moves her tongue like he’s trying to flick it across the room, she sucks his monotooth. She looks back from her doorway before entering and leaves the door wide open behind her. Brian, reading this as an invitation, fist pumps, and follows her inside. It immediately becomes clear that rather than Penny inviting him inside she’s simply an ADHDgirl and is absolutely terrible at closing doors, shutting windows and forgetting about utilities. Every cabinet, every window, every door is wide open. This is a girl that is downright sloppy with home security. The hoovers on. The iron’s burning through a shirt. The blender’s been spinning since 2017. Brian asks to have a quick shower, she points him down the hall, where he finds the shower already spraying down.
After another montage, the students finally look like they are capable of making a drink you didn’t order. Brian’s pushing them hard, he keeps telling them they need to be prepared for anything and then giving them a shove. The threat of cocktail computers feels, for the first time, manageable. Man (and woman) may yet triumph over machine.
Then one afternoon in the training bar, the little computer in Brian’s pocket dings. Iceman’s died. The sombre tones of Kokomo by the Beach Boys play out as we see Brian at his former rival’s funeral. As head of the prestigious New York Mixology School, barkeeps from across the country have gathered to show their respects, each pouring a shot glass onto Iceman’s coffin. Brian is last and scatters a handful of ice cubes. Each makes a clunk as they chip against the coffin, but it is largely seen as a sweet gesture.
Things are quickly going south for Brian as he’s called in for a meeting with the new head of Mixology, Jon Hamm. A manual for cocktail machines is slid across the table “Either you stick to this, or you stick your ass on the bench.”
“But Sir-”
“Iceman’s gone, Brian. You’re on your own.”
Brian looks out the window, assessing his options. He turns back to Hamm.
“I’d rather stick it to the man.”
Brian grabs the manual and chucks it at the window. It falls short and lands on the carpet.
Brian peddles his bike furiously over to Penny’s. She’s just finished preparing a salad for them both when he barges through the door. Penny’s dressed up nice for the date, Brian’s dripping with sweat from the cycle.
“Great timing, food’s ready.”
“Can I have a shower?” he blurts out impatiently.
She wants to say no but he’s disgustingly sweaty at this point. After the shower, the pair feed each other grapes and make kissy faces.
The pair are next seen in Penny’s bed. Brian’s wearing nothing but denim jeans. He asks to use her shower again; he’s once again covered in a layer of shiny sweat. He’s not really sexy, he’s more like a human equivalent of a well varnished table. Brian appears fresh out the shower still in jeans, now soaking wet, and asks if he can brush his tooth. Penny, somewhat confused, asks if he meant teeth. Brian snaps “it’s not called a teethbrush!”, clearly insecure about his monotooth, his solitary mouth soldier. It’s the only real hint as to why Brian only has one tooth in the film.
Brian goes home. His place is like a teenager’s bedroom, scattered with cork boards with photos of his best friends and his fav bands pinned up. He’s drunk and thinking about Doug and Iceman; which as TC is incapable of emoting or doing anything remotely human that this loss could be conveyed through, means there’s lots of long lingering shots of Brian gingerly fingering polaroids. Brian starts thinking about generational trauma and the weight of Doug’s death on his son, this is subtly shown by Brian’s greasy digits now prodding at a portrait of Bradley.
He’s mumbling to himself his speech from the first film “I am the world’s last barman poet. I see America drinking, the fabulous cocktails I make”. He must still be in a nostalgic mood, as he digs through a cupboard pulling out a dust covered neon sign. He gives it a blow revealing the hot pink neon text reading ‘Cocktails and Dreams’. It’s the sign from his failed bar. He reclines into an armchair, clutching the sign, and mutters between gulps of booze “America’s getting stinking on something I stir and shake”.
The students arrive at the training bar for the first day since Brian’s dismissal. We are days away from the big machine bartender showdown. Rooster, leading the pack, freezes as he opens the door. Brian’s stood on the bar (reverse Dead Poets style) blasting pop music and making drinks. He’s singing along “Bodies in the sand, tropical drink melting in your hand” He’s in his element. “Aruba, Jamaica, ooh, I wanna take ya.” He makes eye contact with all of them at once. It’s an impressive feat, his eyes darting about constantly. He hasn’t blinked in over a minute. “Ooh, I wanna take you down to Kokomo” he continues. Hamm’s there sitting in the dark shaking his head. Hamm’s been there for well over an hour. He knows now that Brian is too magnetic to let go. He’s better than a machine, maybe the only man that is. Maybe the only real man. A machine can make a perfect drink, but they can’t sell sex. Hamm approaches “Alright Mav, point proven. You can stay with the program”.
Brian pumps his fist. “On one condition, on the night of the demo — you make the drinks.”
The tension before the climax is palpable. A slowed down version of Kokomo by the Beach Boys plays while Brian emerges from the shower and starts getting dressed. The final notes of Kokomo are played — echoing into a silent anticipation. Brian’s finishing his buttons when he realises he’s missed one out. Deep breath. He tries again from the bottom up, and Kokomo by the Beach Boys starts up again.
The man next to me whispers that his heart is beating so fast that he might have a heart attack. I give his chest a quick feel and oh boy he’s not wrong. His heart was pounding in there. I’m half worried for his heart, half impressed that it’s beating along with Kokomo by the Beach Boys. Thankfully, Brian’s done his buttons successfully this time and the film can carry on.
The reunited father and son open the doors to the bar, Phoenix and Payback follow closely behind. These 4 are the elite team taking on the machines tonight. Hangman, dejected, tags along and sits at the end of the bar. He keeps telling everyone he’s happy to cover if anyone needs a break.
The other professors from the mixology course arrive, taking seats at the back of the bar eagerly waiting for this showdown. It’s their careers on the line too. Jon Hamm and Ed Harris sit nervously on bar stools. They hold hands. Maverick nods at the pair. This is cut out of the film in China. The mixology computing department enter next, wheeling in their latest models of cocktail machine. It’s called something gross like ‘Cock-o-Tron 2000’. They are placed in a line ahead of the bar.
All in all, the bar is filled with about 80% staff and students from the college. They all sit, sipping glasses of warm water, waiting for the first real customers.
Rooster, Phoenix, and PayBack are furiously cleaning glasses. Brian stands back just watching the door, his finger hovering inches from the play button on his sound system. A customer enters and starts walking towards the mahogany bar. “Look sharp team” Maverick orders. Rooster wipes down the bar continuously, he’s sweating onto the bar as he wipes creating more work for himself. Maverick hits play and as the first notes of Kokomo by the Beach Boys sound out, he begins grinding his hips in time with the rhythm. He’s like a snake charmer pulling the customer to his domain. However, just as the customer passes the first of the machines, it comes alive. The screen lights up and a pre-scripted line of dialogue is whirred out “Hi there! How can I refresh you today?” The customer shrugs and turns to the screen, sticks out a finger, and starts tapping in an order. Maverick dances more and more aggressively. Jerking back and forth to no avail. The customer asks him for a glass. It’s humiliating and the room knows it. The computing bros are giddy laughing their heads off at the defeated Maverick.
The second and third customers are equally pulled in by the machines.
“Nobody warned us that they talk!” exclaims Phoenix. “We’ve got to send someone out there!” PayBack postures. “Maybe send Hangman up to the door with a tray of shots?” Rooster adds. The trio make up a quick tray of shots and are about to send Hangman out beyond the bar.
“No.” Maverick sticks out a hand, stopping him.
“They need to feel like they need us more than we need them. Desperation is the worst quality a bartender can have. We need to be blank and reliable. We are the fixed variable” His hand is steady, despite it all.
The trio nods along. “What now Mav?” Brian stops grinding his hips and hits pause on the music. He pours the team a shot each. “Now we drink”.
“Woah, bit strong Mav” PayBack warns. It’s undiluted Ribena.
“Call me Brian” he mutters before swigging the shot back and rinsing his throat with the blackcurrant nectar. He’s humiliated, but still has some self-respect, he still knows when to call it quits. The team neck their shots. An hour passes. Brian stares down solemnly at the bar, his dreams shattered again. He goes for the Ribena bottle hoping to chug it all and forget this awful night when-
“Are you going to let me buy a drink here or what?”
Brian looks up in disbelief. A customer!
“Blooming machine says I’ve drunk too much, won’t let me order another.”
Brian can’t believe what he’s hearing.
“If I wanted to be nagged I would have brought my wife, you know” the man slurs.
“I’ll make you a drink” Brian stutters ignoring the man’s misogyny.
He orders a pint of lager. Brian’s already cracking an egg with a devilish smile.
The music is cranked to 11 as Brian gathers the team for a pep talk. “The machines have a 3 drink limit. They are not programmed to allow anti-social behaviour. I have no such qualms” Brian yells over the blasting music. The trio can’t hear him one bit. He should have upped the volume after the team talk. “Let’s get these jabronies sloppy!” Brian extra yells and the team goes wild.
The computer nerds try to re-jig the Cock-o-Trons on the fly, but they keep blurting out shit like “Let me moisten your tongue”. The nerds keep muttering “not great” under their breaths, as they continue to tinker away adding more lines of code than the bloody matrix to the already straining machines.
The bar is surrounded not just by patrons ordering drinks but spectators — amazed by the half-dance half-hypnosis groove that Brian’s in. Rooster, Phoenix and PayBack do their best to keep up, but Mav is a machine in his own right. He’s in a cocktail trace flinging booze over each shoulder with maybe some splashing into the glass. Someone orders a vodka shot, he takes a gulp and french kisses them. He keeps shouting “eggtime” and cracking a shell into an onlooker’s mouth. His team tries to interject with “maybe slow it down Mav”, “we’ve won Mav” and cries of “it’s only a Tuesday”.
A steady stream of booze is sloshing down onto the floor, forming a river of the stuff flowing right under the overheating machines. Sparks fly from the glitching Cock-o-Trons and catch on the liquor. The fire quickly engulfs the bar; customers flee along with the mixology department. Brian pushes his team ahead of him as a chunk of ceiling collapses on the whole bar area. Smoke and dust cloud the room. Flanagan is trapped. The radio, still playing Kokomo by the Beach Boys, begins to falter, slowing down until each word blurs into the next. The cinema audience is dead silent — is this the end of our hero?
“Maverick is down” Phoenix screams at Jon Hamm. The crowd outside gathers in disbelief. Jon Hamm wipes a tear from his cheek, takes off his hat in respect and says “I was in Mad Men”.
A slightly singed Rooster pleads “we have to circle back!” but PayBack and Phoenix hold him in place. “There’s nothing you can do for him!” “We are not losing anyone else today!” they try to reason. He barges past them and back inside. Rooster runs into what can only be described as a very hot room, pushes past the flaming Cock-o-Trons and jumps up onto the bar, gaining a vantage point to search for Brian. He spots his squished father figure half trapped under a load of ceiling shit, sipping on a daiquiri.
“Bradley, what are you doing here?”
“I’m saving your life.”
“I saved your life!” Brian exclaims.
Bradley yanks Brian up from the rubble. They face each other, surrounded by flames.
“What were you thinking?” Brian continues.
“You told me not to think!” Bradley shouts back.
The pair begin lumbering their way to the exit when even more of the ceiling caves in. That exit is now completely out of the question. Flames rise-up around our protagonists. “I’m sorry Bradley. I shouldn’t have let you come here. I’m sorry” is all Brian can say as he’s flooded with mental images of Bradley’s father and big-time guilty feelings inside. It’s looking pretty hopeless for the duo when the backdoor to the kitchen gets kicked in. Bradley gasps, as Hangman sticks his head out and smiles the widest smile that’s ever been smiled. “Good Afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen, how can I refresh you today?”.
The cinema crowd goes wild, like absolutely bananas. It’s euphoric. People are standing up, tops off, swinging them around their heads. A man’s calling his girlfriend proposing marriage. Another fella is getting a tattoo on his belly and keeps pointing at the screen and repeating “I want this, all of this”.
Everyone is safe. It’s a nice arc-completing moment. Brian couldn’t save Doug’s life but could save his son’s. Bradley stopped overthinking and just acted, saving Brian’s life. And the most selfish person on the team has learnt to be a team player or something. The trio flee, with Brian supported by the two younger men.
The film ends with Bradley meeting Brian in his home. The pair walk around a disused bar Brian has converted into his bachelor’s pad. “Cool manctuary, Mav, where’s the rest of the place?”
“This is it!” Brian reclines in his well-worn armchair.
Penny and her daughter turn up on a sailboat, Brian does finger guns at Bradley ‘Rain check’ and dashes for the door. The film ends with a slow pan away from Brian and Penny sailing her boat, both wearing fun sunglasses and beaming.
Lady Gaga sings Kokomo by the Beach Boys as each actor’s credit appears under a shot of them in the film. A fantastic photo of Brian in aviators finishes the montage, underneath reads: Tom Cruise as Maverick in pink neon lights. Every white man over the ages of forty stands to applaud; it’s like a game of Guess Who when only George, Peter and Robert are left.
Cocktail: Maverick is every old white man’s wet dream. Cocktail: Maverick is like a 2-hour ad for Viagra. Cocktail: Maverick is like a Joe Biden prequel film funded by the democratic party. Cocktail: Maverick is an alcoholic’s worst nightmare. Cocktail: Maverick is more experience than film. Cocktail: Maverick is like a cool beer that whispers ‘you’ve still got it’ while you sip.
Ping Ping. I’m scraped out of my seat and released back into the wild. I’m ready to spread the gospel. However, blood has not returned to my legs, so instead I shuffle awkwardly to the exit. There’s a decent crowd doing the exact same walk. It’s like we’re at school, we’ve just all had Sex Ed and are doing funny walks to hide our erections.
A lot of people in the corridors heading out are asking how TC does all the drinking and cocktail mixing himself, and how one day he will get himself killed drinking these insane drinks or by throwing these tall glasses high in the air. There’s one guy that asks “Why? Why can’t Tom Cruise accept that he’s getting older and play mature supporting roles”. We collectively kick him to the floor. He blurts out between kicks that “Newman in Color of Money does some of his best work, reprising his role from 1961’s ‘The Hustler’, exactly because he’d gracefully accepted that he’d aged.’ None of us are listening. He continues “Newman got old and matured. Cruise has gotten old and stayed the same. When we see Cruise mixing a cocktail and smiling it’s the same look and the same smile he gave when he was 20, there’s no depth, no history to it, how can there be when the man himself refuses to accept that time has passed?”. We all cover our ears and kick him some more.
I’m left thinking if the film is good, terrible, or incredible. It is the best, most cliched thing I’ve ever seen. It strikes such a different note to most blockbusters these days that have become overly reliant on cgi capes and punching. Everything in Cocktail: Maverick is practical, there’s real drinks, real glasses, real sweat. It has a weight and tension to it because we know that the actors are actually pouring those drinks and downing those shots. It feels real.
Leaving the theatre, I walk past 3 different recruitment stalls for Brewdog. Each table has a sign-up list thousands of names long. Brewdog hand me a beer as I sign my name. It has a stencil of TC’s face on the side and it’s called something like ‘Maverick Juice’ or ‘Rockstar Cum’. I slurp it down and re-enter the world.
No.
I slurp it down and enter the world. For the very first time.
thank you for reading.
if you enjoyed it, consider sending £2 my way here: https://ko-fi.com/mattfarr
you can also look at my paintings here: www.mattfarrart.com
all the best, matt
