Risky Business – Film Night

So for my last film night I watched a really old film which I hadn’t seen before, it’s older than I am! I’m talking about Risky Business which stars Tom Cruise, and this was one of his first films back in 1983.

He plays a character called Joel, and is from a fairly rich family in Chicago. He’s in high school and is high achieving and is ready to go to college, with one of his friends telling him that he needs to have some fun in his life. His father wants him to go to Princeton University, and has arranged for someone from Princeton to come to the house to interview him while his parents are out of town.

His friends encourage him to explore his new found freedom, and one calls up a prostitute on his behalf, who shows up to his house, but he soon discovers that it’s actually a transvestite who he has to pay to get rid of, who gives him a number of someone who’d he’d prefer more, a girl called Lana. He calls her up and she spends the night, asks Joel for $300 which he can’t afford so goes to the bank. When he gets back to the house she’s gone, and so is one of his mam’s ornaments, an expensive glass egg.

He tracks down Lana to a hotel who begs to get into the car Joel is driving, his dad’s Porsche, and her pimp Guido pulls a gun and they make a getaway. Lana then tells Joel she’s done with her pimp, they go back to his house and she spends the night, he’s got to leave for school so reluctantly leaves her there, and when he gets back finds she’s there with a friend who’s also a prostitute. Guido tracks Lana down to Joel’s house, who tells Joel that he better not piss him off. Lana gives Joel the idea of turning the house into a brothel, which Joel rejects, but when they all go out and Joel accidentally puts his dad’s Porsche into Lake Michigan, he changes his mind, and the story goes from there.

Overall I liked the film, it has that iconic scene of Tom Cruise dancing in his white shirt and boxer shorts in the living room while lip syncing to a song, which has remained one of the stand out moments of his career. The film is kind of like a very early American Pie type, coming of age boy with some friends and girls in on the action, and is rated 18 probably because of the full frontal nudity from girls in the film. I always think that these types of films can’t really compete with the American Pie generation, it was a different time, but still this is a watchable film and is pretty good.

p.s. the fashion and in particular Joel’s is pretty terrible, but very 80’s 😀