Running a bar/restaurant is a lot more than pouring drinks and dispensing wisdom. The key scene in the film for me is that where Brown after marrying East Side princess Kelly Lynch and her father's money has backed him in opening the most posh establishment on the East Side, he confesses that he doesn't know the first thing about really running a business. The women come and go for both Cruise and Brown. It was the world of Cocktail brought to a gruesome reality. In fact right around the same time Cocktail was out the tragic murder of Jennifer Levin by preppie killer Robert Chambers was introducing via the tabloids of the world of the yuppie bars of that vicinity. Bartending on the Upper East Side is a whole different world than the working class of Queens. Brown teaches Tom all the tricks of the trade in bartending and hustling. An exhausted Tom arrives at an upscale bar presided over by Bryan Brown and the two of them hit it off. The problem Tom has in looking for a job is that old adage, what kind of work are you out of? He tries in all kinds of places, but he has no experience. He probably could get a job with his uncle, but Tom aims for higher things. Tom's fresh out of the army and his first stop is his uncle Ron Dean's bar in Queens. Still Cocktail is an entertaining enough film with Tom Cruise now settled into the parts he usually plays as an all American social climber. And here Tom Cruise does it tandem with Bryan Brown. But unless it was a topless joint where the bartenders were required to do more than pour and converse and maybe toss out an occasional drunk, I never did see one do the Hippy Hippy Shake. God only knows in my lifetime I've dealt with a lot of bartenders, I still do now when I go in a place and only order non-alcoholic beverage.

Lisa banes cocktail