All The Right Moves on DVD (1983)

Justin W from London, England , 25/08/2004

The eighties, for all its faults have been responsible for many memorable coming of age teenage films. Be it The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's day off or Dirty Dancing, they have all stood the test of time. However, All the right moves does not.

Set in a decaying Pennsylvanian town, Tom Cruise stars as a high school American Footballer who is seeking a scholarship for university to have a better life. Helping Tom in his choices is his girlfriend Lea Thompson and a young Chris Penn as his high school bestfriend.

The acting in itself is not that poor, but the script is. There are flashes of what Tom Cruise would later produce but in his career, they are few and far between. Similarly, Lea Thompson tries to do the best that she can with a poor script but ultimately succeeds in being eye candy.

The movie can also boast one of the most gratuitous sex scenes in film history where the two lead characters make love for no good reason than to show Lea Thompson and Tom Cruise naked.

The moral message, so abundant in teen movies, is rather depressing as well. The movie, for some inexplicable reason, seems to condone guilt trips as a way of furthering your career. Also, the film does not know if it wants to be a social movie or a sports one.

Whereas movies such as Pretty in Pink and the Breakfast Club succeed because of the perfomances and script, All the right moves does not. All the right moves is a film which should only be viewed to see how much Tom Cruise's perfomance has developed over 20 years.

  3 out of 4 people found this review helpful

Read all reviews

michaels from East Sussex , 25/11/2004

Stef (Tom Cruise) is relying on his American football ability to get a college scholarship to do engineering and become the first in his emigre family not to be just a steelworker. He's also counting on his misty eyed girlfriend Lisa (Lea Thompson) for local sex without commitment. Then he clashes with football coach Nickerson (Craig T Nelson) ...

This flimsy story relies on its hard core of realism to prevent it sinking into slush. The young, fresh faced Cruise dominates with very personable aggression and arrogance; the others seem doused in a 'don't upstage Cruise' potion. Thompson is sweetly demure until the moonstruck abandon of the nude love scene, a time of intense appreciative commitment and conviction not otherwise experienced. Nelson is too well scrubbed to be a convincing coach, a decent man in a position of authority which he abuses and then shows remorse at Cruise's accurate taunts: you could say he plays his emasculated part well.

The pity is there's interesting material too briefly sketched: ethnic minorities' right to prove themselves; inequality of male and female, sport and non-sport scholarship opportunities; tension between those proud of their environment and those eager to leave. You don't need a knowledge of American football to get the message. But that edgy realism in which the skies open to deluge our hero and team in mud when he looks to have triumphed crumbles away in a tame ending.

  1 out of 1 person found this review helpful

Read all reviews

A customer from Poole, Dorset , 14/06/2006

I'm afraid that this didn't captivate my attention and I switched off after 5 mins!

Read all reviews

A customer from London, England , 12/05/2007

In fairness, this review is based on only about 15-20 minutes of watching the film: it was at that point I turned it off. Silly, childish behaviour on the screen; foul language, continually repeated for no reason other than trying to recreate the locker room atmosphere; it all felt like adolescent rubbish, which I couldn't bring myself to go on watching.

Maybe it got better further on. If so, sorry! It couldn't have got worse.

Read all reviews