Risky Business 1983, Rated R

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Starring Tom Cruise, Rebecca De Mornay, et al.

For the most part, Risky Business is your typical '80's high school comedy, complete with a setting on Chicago's north shore, a character whose nick-name ends with an 'iles'(think Stiles, Miles or Niles), a character who smokes a pipe and wears camouflage clothing, and a lead whose parents take off for a weekend leaving him alone with a very expensive car that he is never normally allowed to drive. However, Risky Business transcends the normal level of hokiness associated with the majority of these teeny-bopper films--think High School U.S.A.--because of the other, and rather unexpected elements of writer/director Paul Brickman's 1983 fantasy-comedy, detailing the introduction of a run-of-the-mill teenager into the world of pimping and prostitution.

Tom Cruise stars in Risky Business as Joel, a high school senior who likes to run around in his underwear singing, who is trying valiantly to get into Princeton University with a 3.14 GPA. I found this a particularly interesting plot point since my own high school guidance counselor laughed at me when I told her I wanted to apply to Duke University with a 3.3 GPA, but I digress. Joel is friends with a group of off-the-wall and horny guys whose own college decisions have already been made, amplifying the anxieties Joel feels about his own future. Joel's best friend Miles (Curtis Armstrong, who basically reprised his buddy role with more burping in 1984's Revenge of the Nerds) feels Joel's pain and sets up him with a hooker. The hooker, ulp, turns out to be male and directs Joel to Lana (Rebecca Demornay), a call girl with a heart of aluminum. Joel falls for Lana and faster than you can say "daddy's Porsche falls into Lake Michigan", Joel is in need of money. So he listens to Lana's advice and sets up his house as a brothel, with every high school guy from Evanston to Highland Park showing up to pay for the services of Lana and her 'business' friends.

Of course complications ensue--this is a movie--and we laugh. Risky Business takes advantage of its Chicagoland setting to the Nth degree, allowing Cruise and Demornay the pleasures of making out on empty El trains, dining on the 95th floor in the Hancock building and walking along the pristine lake front to add true character to the setting If this sounds halfway interesting, but you prefer musicals, just think of this as The Best Little Whorehouse in Glencoe.