Risky Business (1983)

Escape Into the ‘80s, Movie #1

Synopsis: Pubescent punk promotes perky prostitute, provokes perturbed pimp, plunges Porsche, pleases pimply peers, personifies piggishness, pooh-poohs parents, pursues Princeton!

Blurb From the VHS Jacket: “There’s a time for playing it safe and a time for.. Risky Business.”

What Did I Learn?: Porsche made some really ugly cars in the early 1980s. And dark grey? What a lame colour for a high-performance sports car.

You Might Like This Movie If: you want to see the film that launched Tom Cruise's career, and allowed him to make certain... other videos.

Really?: 1) Wait – was it physically possible for Guido to catch up with our heroes after they zoomed away from him at the hotel? 2) Funny how Joel gets suspended for five days, flunks two mid-term exams and is thrown out of the Future Enterprisers, and yet none of this is important later on. 3) So, Joel throws the mother of all parties – complete with hookers – and none of the neighbours complain, or phone the cops.

Rating: Risky Business is one of those films that I enjoyed as a kid, but it now seems rather dated. Sure, the movie has a few laughs, and the musical score by Tangerine Dream is still pretty stylish even after 30+ years, but Risky Business has a couple of problems: a) it seems to be far more of a celebration of greed and materialism than a satirical take on those traits, and b) none of its characters – Joel, his asshole friends, Lana, or Guido the killer pimp, are even remotely likeable. Risky Business isn’t a bad movie, but it rubbed me the wrong way. 6/10 stars.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086200/?ref_=nv_sr_1