Risky Business

By VARIETY STAFF

Geffen. Director Paul Brickman; Producer Jon Avnet; Screenplay Paul Brickman; Camera Reynaldo Villalobos, Bruce Surtees; Editor Richard Chew; Music Tangerine Dream; Art Director William J. Cassidy
 
Tom Cruise
Rebecca DeMornay
Curtis Armstrong
Bronson Pinchot
Raphael Sbarge
Joe Pantoliano
 

Risky Business is like a promising first novel, with all the pros and cons that come with that territory.

High schooler Tom Cruise could literally be a next-door neighbor to Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People on Chicago's affluent suburban North Shore. That changes virtually overnight, however, when he meets sharp-looking hooker Rebecca DeMornay. On the lam from her slimy pimp, she shacks up in Cruise's splendid home while his parents are out of town and, since he's anxious to prove himself as a Future Enterpriser in one of his school's more blatantly greed-oriented programs, convinces him to make the house into a bordello for one night.

Ultimately, pic seems to endorse the bottom line, going for the big buck. In fact, not only is Cruise rewarded financially for setting up the best little whorehouse in Glencoe, but it gets him into Princeton to boot. Writer-director Paul Brickman can therefore be accused of trying to have it both ways, but there's no denying the stylishness and talent of his direction.

(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1983. Running time: 96 MIN.