All the Right Moves (1983)

(In French, On TV, October 2019) If you want your movie to accumulate some unearned posterity, there is no better way than having the lead actors become one of Hollywood’s superstars. In other words, I don’t think we’d remember All the Right Moves so fondly if it didn’t star Tom Cruise in the lead role. In many ways, it’s entirely forgettable teen movie. A bit grittier than most, it follows a crucial moment in the life of our protagonist, a high-school senior who wants to become an engineer, but whose only ticket out of town may be a football scholarship. As a product of the early 1980s that owes a lot to the New Hollywood of the previous decade, it’s often aiming to be a slice of blue-collar Americana, with The Mill looming large as the town’s biggest employer and the desperation to escape a small-town life being central to the character’s motivation. The drama comes in after a crucial football loss, with events leading our protagonist to antagonize the football coach and perhaps his only way out. But, of course, our protagonist is a likable guy stuck between various loyalties, and the way these Horatio Algeresque fables resolve themselves usually comes by having him rewarded for his virtues. All the Right Moves is not a complicated film: Even if the ending appears to pop out of nowhere, it’s meant to be a bit of a sop to conventional moral values. The draw here was and remains a freshly faced Tom Cruise, in one of his early roles before Risky Business put him on the map. As a film, it’s a bit of an unremarkable high school drama. As a look at early Cruise, though, it does still have its merits.