Tom Cruise had “All the Right Moves” early on
Tom Cruise certainly has been in the acting game for a long time.
He’s currently setting the box office ablaze again with “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” but when his career was just getting going, he made his presence known by appearing in youngadult tales … one of which, “All the Right Moves,” is marking its 40th anniversary this year. Now streaming on Hulu, it reaffirms how long Cruise has been a star, and he has Lucille Ball to thank in part since her company made the movie.
He plays Stef, a high-school football star in a Pennsylvania steel town that cherishes its athletes. Stef and his family hope his prowess on the field will earn him a college scholarship, and with schools seeking his services, he seems to be on the right path until he locks horns with his coach (an effectively stern Craig T. Nelson) over a championship game that goes the wrong way. The coach kicks Stef off the team, and the young man’s future suddenly is thrust into severe doubt.
Though his girlfriend Lisa (Lea Thompson) tries to encourage him to find a new path to his goals, Stef continues to reel, putting their relationship in jeopardy as well. Friends played by Chris Penn and Paul Carafotes also have dilemmas to deal with, some self-created, and the result is a compelling portrait of young people struggling to overcome their challenging circumstances.
While “All the Right Moves” principally is a showcase for Cruise, it also serves Thompson quite well. She was on the verge of her own career breakout then, with “Red Dawn” and “Back to the Future: soon to follow, and she makes Lisa an engaging combination of compassion and strength. Her scene with the coach’s wife (Sandy Faison), from whom she seeks advice on how to deal with Stef, is especially affecting.
The look of “All the Right Moves” is purposely bleak, and it was in the control of someone who really knew what he was doing: Michael Chapman, a veteran cinematographer (“Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull”) who made his directing debut with the picture. The actual camera work was done by someone who also would move into the director’s chair, Jan de Bont (“Speed,” “Twister”), but he and Chapman clearly saw eye to eye on this visual style of this picture … which almost is a character itself in the story.