Risky Business: Critic Reviews

[The film] improves as it goes along.

It's funny because it deals with subjects that are so touchy, so fraught with emotional pain, that unless we laugh there's hardly any way we can deal with them -- especially if we are now, or ever were, a teenage boy.

One of the finest film explorations of the end of innocence.

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.

For writer/director Paul Brickman, this was a case of being in the right place at the right time and, perhaps most importantly, getting the right leading man in place.

This film is deftly made, the humor nicely understated, the leading actors (Tom Cruise and Rebecca de Mornay) smart and appealing.

It's sexy, smart and funny, but also stylish and filled with social satire and commentary on the culture of money.

A capitalist wet dream; one that we have long since woken up from screaming.

It's easy to forget the idiosyncracies of a film that so successfully trades on adolescent male fantasies and nightmares. [Blu-ray]

It works well as a comedy but one cringes at the thought that it defined, for a while, the social expectations of a generation.

De Mornay does sterling work as the helpful hooker, but this is Cruise's big chance, and he relishes it, putting in a believable and likeable performance.

Good '80's teen movie with a suitable soundtrack and the loveable Cruise displaying his new found starry confidence.

One of the key films of the 1980s, and proof that a teen sex comedy could merit serious consideration.

Paul Brickman makes a splashy debut with a stylish youth satire that conveys more vividly Reagonomics and the corrupt and decadent decade of 1980s than serious dramas like Wall Street; it's also a wonderful showcase for Tom Cruise, who became a star.

Mildly diverting, wildly overrrated.

What distinguishes it, however, is that it's hovering permanently on the brink of stark, staring disaster in a way that strangely recalls The Graduate.

Now classic Cruise-in-briefs highlights the goings on.

A classic! Welcome to stardom Mr. Cruise.

involving and entertaining