Long before he was commanding a cool $20 million per picture,
divorcing Nicole Kidman and suing gay porn stars, Tom Cruise was just
a very hungry young actor with a bright future. He'd taken on a few
notable supporting roles in solid pictures, and toplined the
forgettable teen exploitation flick Losin' It. But it was 1983 that
was to become Cruise's banner year, when he starred in the megahit
Risky Business, and the underrated, often overlooked gem All The Right
Moves. A star was born.
Cruise plays Stefan Djordjevic, a cocky
young high school football hopeful vying for a college scholarship,
his only way out of a dead-end life in a Pennsylvania steeltown.
Djordjevic is one of the team's star players, but his coach (Craig T.
Nelson) also has his eye of parlaying his winning team into job as a
college coach. But high school football is not known as a sport of
manners or patience, and the two just might ruin each others chances
at the big time. Does Djordjevic have all the right moves to make it
out of the Pennsylvania blast furnaces and not blow it for his
teammates, his coach, and himself? A film of ideas and ideals,
perhap what's most impressive about All The Right Moves is its sense
of reality. Unlike most teen movies of its era, director Michael
Chapman grounds the film in believable situations, locations, and
characters. Cruise and Nelson are perfectly cast, and also strong are
then young up-and-comers Lea Thompson and Chris Penn as Djordjevic's
long-supportive girlfriend and best pal. Yet for some reason the film
has been forgotten by many in favor of Cruise's bigger hits, which is
a shame. All The Right Moves is one of the few films for young adults
that really has something to say, about the nature of high school
sports, our nation's insatiable quest for success at all costs, and
the harsh winner-take-all realities of competition. This is a film
well worth discovering, or rediscovering.
Video: How Does
The Disc Look? 
Presented for the first time on home video
in 1.85;1 anamorphic widescreen, unfortunately this is a mediocre
transfer. The print is rather dirty, with frequent dropouts and the
occasional nick and scratch distract. Colors are intentionally subdued
if a tad unstable, and fleshtones appear to veer a bit too much
towards the red side. Blacks are solid but contrast dull with muddy
shadow delineation. Film grain is present and hampers detail, and the
transfer exhibits a soft appearance throughout. I also noticed a few
compression artifacts but nothing excessive, and the minor edge
enhancement is not intrusive. This could have looked better, and it
appears little serious effort was put into presenting this film on
DVD.
Audio: How Does the Disc Sound?
Featuring a
new English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track, this new remix is fairly
good but can't compensate for the weak source elements. This is a
fairly well-recorded soundtrack for the time, but dialogue is
sometimes hard to discern and a bit too quiet in the mix. Bass is
pretty strong for such an old film, though still weak by today's
standards. Dynamic range is fair with thin highs, though the new mix
helps open up the front soundstage fairly well, with dialogue firmly
anchored in the center channel and some decent effects separation.
Surround use is fairly meager and provides only the slightest hint of
envelopment.
English and French Dolby mono tracks are also
included, along with English Closed Captions, and English and Spanish
subtitles. 
Supplements: What Goodies Are There?
The included extras are slim, with only the film's original
theatrical trailers in anamorphic widescreen plus an additional
Spanish version included, along with previews for five other "Fox
Flix" titles. As this is an underrated little film, wouldn't a
new commentary or even just a featurette have been nice? Ah, well,
another missed opportunity...
DVD-ROM Exclusives: What do
you get when you pop the disc in your PC?
No ROM extras
have been included.
Parting Thoughts
For only
$19.95 list, this is a decent bargain, though the mediocre transfer
and lack of extras makes this a likely rental for all but the most
devoted Tom Cruise fans. Too bad, because this is an underrated flick
that, even today, is a relevant look at the pressure-filled world of
teen sports. Worth a look.
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