All the Right Moves

Ah, the classic 80's film, the big hair, the bad lighting, the lame music, everything that embodies the great American films of 1983. And "All the Right Moves" is no exception. I'm 24, and just viewed this movie for the first time last week by stumbling upon it at my parent's house while I was visiting for the weekend. Why do you care? I live in Johnstown, where this movie was filmed (as was 1977's Paul Newman classic "Slap Shot") and I had never heard of this film! So, I find this dusty VHS copy and take it home with me to view. As i pull it out of its slip sleeve, a yellowed napkin falls out; with Tom's autograph on it! Turns out when I was about 1, my parents brought me down to Johnstown to ride on the Inclined Plane, and I was introduced to Tom Cruise. I never knew?! So knowing that, I had to give the movie a thorough watching, and I must say, I have a little pride that that film was shot here. It was an enjoyable movie, although the ending was a little dry. The sad part of the film is, all the activity and energy that takes place in the movie with the steel mills is no longer here. The mills have been shut down for about 20 years, and the city is pretty much in a depressed state. It's good to watch the movie just to get a glimpse of what this area use to be. So watch it, enjoy it, heck, you can even rent it from the rental place a block from my house. That place is called "All the Right Movies." Enjoy! P.S. For the Kid's sake, It is rated R for strong language and some intense nudity.

Stef Djordjevic (Tom Cruise) lives in poor Pennsylvanian town Ampipe, a company town for American Pipe & Steel. He is the high school football star defensive back. He has his girlfriend Lisa Lietzke (Lea Thompson) and dreams of a college engineering scholarship. After a lost, Stef fights with Coach Nickerson (Craig T. Nelson) and is kicked off the team. Nickerson's home is vandalized and the coach blames Stef. Stef finds himself blacklisted from colleges. His friend Brian (Chris Penn) is forced to marry his pregnant girlfriend. The mill lays off his brother and he's desperate to escape the town.

It's a very traditional small town kid struggles. Tom Cruise makes it better than its simple premise. He's full of himself and full of angst. It's also interesting that Craig T. Nelson isn't a simple character. Lea Thompson probably plays the most endearing and compelling character. Her talk with Mrs. Nickerson is fascinating. The teenage desperation is palpable although some of it is bad cliché. It reminds me a little of 'Friday Night Lights' but nowhere near as good.

Stef Djordjevic is one of a team of football players in Pennsylvania that is relying on a scholarship to leave the dying steel town and go to college. The only options open to them in the town are to work in the steel mill which is currently laying off workers. The film shows the many barriers that trap the youngsters in the town.

This is one of Cruise's first films and it is a lot less glossy than many of his star-driven projects now, it's a lot more rough and ready than he would let it be if he made it now. It is a very simple story and a very short film - it basically shows a group of friends trapped in the town who have dreams of more but must overcome obstacles to get to college. Cruise must overcome the team coach's dislike for him to get a recommendation, Penn finds himself with a pregnant girlfriend who he must marry, Paul Carafotes finds himself drawn into crime to make ends meet. The lesson of the film is that it's difficult to break a cycle where you're in an industrial town and are expected to go into the same type of work as your father etc.

The most interesting thing about this is how young all the actors are! We've all got used to their faces now and it's weird seeing how young Cruise, Penn and Lea Thompson once were. The story is OK but is a little clichéd and is all a bit tidy towards the end. The football action is not exciting but I suppose is a muddily realistic representation of small town school sports. The performances are good considering the young cast and Chris Penn and Craig T. Nelson provide the two best roles. Cruise is a little too overplayed and brings a bit too much teenage anger and angst to the role.

Overall it's an interesting film, a little clichéd but OK. Personally I found it a little boring and didn't really care what happened to Cruise but it's not too bad.

Continuing my plan to watch every Tom Cruise movie in order, I come to to his third and final movie of 1983, All The Right Moves.

Plot In A Paragraph: A high school football player (Cruise) desperate for a scholarship and his headstrong coach clash in a dying Pennsylvania steel town.

Like with Risky Business, this is another movie that I don't get people's love for. I find it watchable, and nothing more. Cruise is OK, everyone's favourite TV coach, Craig T Nelson is his usual reliable self, and Leah Thompson (who shares the most unsexy and uncomfortable life scene I have ever witnessed) looks cute, but doesn't really bring much.

One plus is, it has a decent rock soundtrack, which is usually listed first in the end credits with each song stating what scene it was played it.

This was the first movie Tom Cruise's name appeared above the movie title on a poster.

All The Right Moves grossed $17 million at the domestic box office, to end the year the 42nd highest grossing movie of 1983.

Sports movies are often stuck in the same old clichéd formula, but more often than not, they work. To All the Right Moves credit, it doesn't follow that winning formula, but it also doesn't necessarily create its own well-strung story.

In one of his first acting roles, Tom Cruise stars alongside Craig T. Nelson and Lea Thompson as his coach and girlfriend respectively. If for nothing else, this film is worth a watch just for those performances alone. Cruise and Thompson prove to be fearless in their risqué high school roles, and Nelson plays a great antagonist and obstacle for Cruise's 'Stefen' character. I can't speak too highly on the film itself, but those performances are certainly worth 90 minutes of your time.

The biggest issue with All the Right Moves is that it actually tries to make too many 'moves' with its story, pun intended. It doesn't really know what it wants to be. On one hand, it's a nice coming of age story with Thompson and Cruise. The next it's an intense football drama between two schools. Or even a film that tackles the heavy themes of class struggle and sexuality, just to name a few. There's just no real focus here. The minute you start to get invested with what Nelson's team is doing, led by Cruise among others, it changes its course to another plot point entirely. I appreciate the film's intentions, it just didn't hit home the ideas that it set out to, and it suffers because of that.

What I can say is that this film was probably more of a product of its time. The soundtrack is blatantly filled with slow and smooth 80's tracks that can be distracting. The sound editing as a whole is pretty poor. The football sequences are borderline amateur. And some of the plot points have been done much better in more recent years. Sure, that's not the film's fault, but it does hinder its re-watchability to an extent. It's fun to watch a young Cruise and Thompson share great chemistry, but there's not a lot beneath that.

+Cruise shows promise

+Attempts to explore deep themes

-But fails at most of them

-Misguided direction

56/100