All the Right Moves (1983) Revisited: An Underrated Tom Cruise Flick

Last Updated on September 27, 2022

1983 was a big year for Tom Cruise, as he had not one but four movies in theatres by the time the year was out. One – Losin’ It would sink without a trace. Another, The Outsiders, would see his role virtually excised in the cutting room. The third – Risky Business – would make him a superstar, and the fourth – All the Right Moves – would become a perennially underrated favorite among fans. Let’s dive and discuss why All the Right Moves has ALL THE RIGHT CRUISE!

In August of 1983, Risky Business became an unexpected smash hit, grossing $63 million domestically – a pretty big deal for 83. It would become the 10th highest-grossing movie of the year. 20th Century Fox must have been thrilled, as though they didn’t produce Risky Business; they had another, already wrapped Tom Cruise movie in the can, All the Right Moves. A modestly budgeted drama directed by famed cinematographer Michael Chapman, who shot Raging Bull, the film told the story of a high school football player, played by Cruise, whose only shot at escaping his blue-collar town, which is lorded over by the spectre of a coal mine his father and brother both work it, is through an athletic scholarship to College. Luckily, as the title says, he has All the Right Moves. Way too short to be a professional football player (the film generously gives his height as 5 foot 10, but he’s 5’7 on a good day); he wants to get himself educated and dreams of being an electrical engineer. He’s determined not to fall into the trap many of his friends have fallen into – in that once they graduate high school, they settle down with their girlfriends, get married and have babies. In the movie, this happens to the character, played by Christopher Penn, who gets his girlfriend pregnant and has to turn down a scholarship to a school to stay behind and marry her.

It’s a great little movie too few people have seen, and we’ll tell you all about it in this episode of Tom Cruise Revisited!