On September 16, 2008 in celebration of the 25th anniversary of “Risky Business,” Tom Cruise again grabs his air guitar, cranks up Bob Segers Old Time Rock and Roll and dances his way back into the hearts of millions in the film that launched him into superstardom.
Warner Home Video will be release two new versions of “Risky Business” Deluxe Edition. Packaged in a new o-sleeve, the standard definition will sell for $19.97 SRP and the Two-Disc Blu-ray Hi-Def for $28.99 SRP.
Both versions have been restored and remastered with 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio and boast special bonus content including a retrospective docu “The Dream is Always the Same: The Story of Risky Business.” in both standard and high definition formats as well as screen tests and the directors cut of the final scene.
An in-depth audio commentary with Tom Cruise, Paul Brickman and Jon Avnet is available on the DVD only. Also available exclusive to the Blu-ray Hi-Def Edition is a video commentary with Tom Cruise, Paul Brickman and Jon Avnet and a digital copy of the film compatible with iTunes and Windows Media devices which allows consumers a single non-transferable download of the full-length feature to their PC or iPod.
“Risky Business” catapulted into major stardom Cruise, who has since been nominated for three Oscars (but never won) and six Golden Globes, winning three of the latter (“Born on the Fourth of July,” “Jerry Maguire,” and “Magnolia”). His other good roles include “All the Right Moves,” “Top Gun,” “Rain Man,” “Mission Impossible,” and “Collateral.”
Risky Business Deluxe Edition
* Restored and remastered feature with all new 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio
* The Dream is Always the Same: The Story of Risky Business (All new 25th anniversary retrospective documentary on the making of Risky Business featuring interviews with Tom Cruise and cast)
* Audio commentary with Tom Cruise, director Paul Brickman and producer Jon Avnet
* Directors cut of the final scene from Risky Business (with introduction by Paul Brickman)
* Original screen tests with Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay
* Theatrical trailer
Risky Business Two-Disc Blu-ray Hi-Def Deluxe Edition
* Restored and remastered feature with all new 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio
* The Dream is Always the Same: The Story of Risky Business (All new 25th anniversary retrospective documentary on the making of Risky Business featuring interviews with Tom Cruise and cast (in Hi-Def format)
* Directors cut of the final scene from Risky Business (with introduction by Paul Brickman)
* Original screen tests with Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay
* Theatrical trailer
Blu-Ray Hi-Def Exclusive Content
* Video commentary with Tom Cruise, director Paul Brickman, and producer Jon Avnet (in Hi-Def format)
* Digital copy of the feature film
Film Review
At first, “Risky Business” felt like just another youth-high school comedy about scoring and getting laid, much in the vein of “The Last American Virgin” or “Private Lessons,” minor coming-of-age items about 1980s teenagers and their first sexual encounters. No one could predict in the summer of 1983 Paul Brickman’s debut comedy, “Risky Business,” would be a smash hit and would produce a new meg-star, Tom Cruise.
But upon watching this well-executed movie, audiences became aware of narrative and stylish innovations that elevated it above the routine genre item. For some critics, “Risky Business” was an update of James Dean’s star vehicle, the seminal rebellious misunderstood youth film, “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955), which also stood way above the routine 1950s juvenile-delinquent flicks.
A zeitgeist film, “Risky Buisness,” reflected Reagonomics in the same way that “Flashdance” (also released in 1983) and “Top Gun” (1986) did. That picture was to the 1980s what “Rebel Without a Cause” was to the 1950s, “The Graduate” to the 1960s, and “Saturday Night Fever” to the 1970s, a movie that that conveyed the socio-cultural temperature of its times, positing a “misunderstood” youth vis–vis the adult world.
The yarn’s handsome hero is Joel Goodsen (Tom Cruise), an affluent, spoiled but sex-starved teen growing up in a Chicago’s upscale. For the smart and ambitious Joel, making money and living well is everything. If in “The Graduate,” Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock represented a generation of idealistic youngsters when he refused to take an adult’s advice to get into “plastics,” that’s precisely the kind of advice Joel is eager forbut only initially.
A child of the 1980s, Joel and is high school friends Miles (Curtis Armstrong), Barry (Bronson Pinchot) and Glenn (Raphael Sbarge) hang out at a McDonald’s, consuming junk food while casually discussing which college’s business school is likely to land them the highest-paying job when they graduate in four years.
Joel wants to get into Princeton, not because of the latter’s educational standards, but because he knows that a degree from America’s premiere school (truly Ivy League) would translate into money and lucrative lifestyle.
Rather conveniently, Joel’s parents take off on a vacation, leaving him alone to study for the college boards. Joel amuses himself in the evenings by dancing around the house in just T-shirt and underwear, grabbing a candlestick and pretending it’s a microphone as he rocks and rolls until he exhausts himself to boredom. Reportedly, Cruise and Brickman improvised that classic moment, which was not in the script, while shooting. It became the film’s most powerful image and the scene people still stalk about it.
Joel then calls a hooker out-service he finds listed in the classified ads. Vicki, the black girl who answers Joel’s call, is a bit much for him. Realizing how inexperienced Joel is, she sends over Lana (Rebecca De Mornay), a knowledgeable whore who nevertheless has the appearance of an angel.
Joel is having a little adventure–until Lana refuses to leave the morning after. He’s forced to go to high school while Lana stays at his house. When Joel finally gets Lana to leave, she takes along his mother’s beloved crystal egg. Undeterred, Joel pursues her to retrieve it, only to be confronted by Lana’s killer pimp, Guido.
One thing leads to another, and before long, Lana and her friends move into Joel’s house, which he operates as a brothel for his upscale buddies. When a college recruiter (Richard Masur) shows up, he’s so taken with Joel’s innovative ideas and resourceful entrepreneurship that he immediately accepts Joel into Harvard’s prestigious business school.
Paul Brickman, who had written the witty screenplay for Jonathan Demme’s “Citizens Band” (aka “Handle With Care”) makes a splashy directing debut here.
“Risky Business” abounds with fun and memorable moments, such as the scene in which Joel’s father’s Porsche drifts downhill toward Lake Michigan, while Joel makes ever more desperate and futile efforts to prevent it. Another striking sequence has Joel and Lana making love in a subway, which for some was one of the most intensely erotic images in American movies, even if it’s suggestive rather than graphic. Though there’s no nudity, many viewers recall seeing Cruise and De Mornay naked (a wishful thinking).
Cruise was immediately catapulted to stardom with his performance, which unsparingly satirized the greed of Joel–and the Reagan-era in general; Oliver Stone would satirize it in a serious mode in “Wall Street” in 1987. But Brickman makes him sympathetic enough for the audience to care cared about.
Cruise’s odyssey from a virginal innocent to a cynical, thoroughly corrupted yet happy to be a winner by playing dirty, is a sight to behold. Three years later, with the release of Tony Scott “Top Gun,” also a Reagan-like movie (remember the “best of the best”), Cruise will become America’s top movie star and will occupy that position for the next two decades.
While “Risky Business” is devoid of overt polemics or ideology, it did suggest that in the 1980s, almost everyone was in one way or another a whore, the only difference between Joel and Lana being her honesty about her profession. That cynical assessment was presented stylishly and winningly by Brickman.
Credits
Produced by Jon Avnet and Steve Tisch.
Written and directed by Paul Brickman.
Camera: Reynold Villalobos and Bruce Surtees.
Editor: Richard Chew
Running time: 98 minutes
MPAA Rating: R.
Cast
Joel Goodsen (Tom Cruise)
Lana (Rebecca De Mornay)
Miles (Curtis Armstrong)
Barry (Bronson Pinchot)
Glenn (Raphael Sbarge)
Guido (Joe Pantoliano)
Joel’s Father (Nicholas Pryor)
Joel’s Mother (Janet Carroll)
Vicki (Shera Danese)
Rutherford (Richard Masur)
Warner
(Geffen Company Release)