Review of Risky Business

Introduction

“Joel, you wanna know something? Every now and then say, ‘What the f***’. ‘What the f***’ gives you freedom. Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future”. If you’ve only ever seen Risky Business on BBC television, the above line doesn’t quite have the same impact, the art of word-substitution (censorship) giving us the lower impact ‘What the hell’ instead.

Sandwiched between the Outsiders and All The Right Moves in Cruise’s filmography, Risky Business is a teen comedy aimed at adults, and most people will remember two things from the film – Cruise and DeMornay making love on the stairs, and Cruise watching his dad’s Porsche 928 sink into a lake.

If you’ve not seen the film, Cruise stars as Joel Goodson – son of wealthy parents who go away on holiday leaving him alone in the house. He decides to use the services of a call girl, Lana (DeMornay), but when he can’t immediately pay her in full, she steals a very expensive glass egg from the house. In the process of trying to get the egg back, Joel manages to attract the unwanted attentions of her pimp, Guido, and deposit his father’s Porsche in a lake, leading to a huge repair bill. To raise money Joel and Lana stage a huge party at Joel’s home, turning it into a brothel for one night – “My name is Joel Goodson. I deal in human fulfilment. I grossed over eight thousand dollars in one night. Time of your life, huh kid?”

Video

The disc is two-sided, featuring 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen on one side, with 4:3 on the other. I watched the widescreen version, but a quick look at the 4:3 side reveals the same image quality.

The film is 18 years old now (has Tom Cruise really been around that long) and unfortunately the image quality reflects the age of the print. The image is grainy and not especially detailed.

Audio

The sound comes in Dolby Surround – a real disappointment as Risky Business features one of my favourite soundtracks – mainly Tangerine Dream but also including Bob Seger, Jeff Beck, Journey and Phil Collins.

Despite the inherent limitations of the Pro-Logic encoding, the sound is of a reasonable standard and the music sounds good. The dialogue is clear throughout the movie.

There is little use of the rear channels and I was left wondering just how good Tangerine Dream would have sounded with a good 5.1 remix.

Features

The are just “Production Notes”, not even a trailer :(

Conclusion

Risky Business is still an enjoyable movie, despite having been seen far too often. This is probably the film that started Cruise on his rise to superstardom and when Top Gun came along three years later in 1986 he became one of the biggest stars in the business.

Average picture quality, Pro-Logic sound and no extras make this disc limited value-for money, even at Warner’s low price of £12.99, but it still provides reasonable entertainment and is probably unlikely to be reissued with restored picture and remixed sound.

However, if like myself, you consider Risky Business to be an essential part of any movie collection, such problems can be overlooked.