All the Right Moves (1983) Review

Stefen Djordjevic is a high school American football player who dreams of nothing more than getting a scholarship to get out of the small town he lives in and avoiding the fate of his father and brothers working in the steel town. A clash with his coach Nickerson could cause his world to come crashing down before it has even begun.

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I came across this film due to Sky Cinema having a Tom Cruise season going on, so decided to download it from On Demand. In all honesty I had never really heard of it before. But as you are probably aware I do love sports films, they usually offer inspiration and have great points in them.

Unfortunately for this one it shows a bad side of coaching when it comes to Nickerson who ends up at war with his star player and attempts to stop any form of future for him. I felt as though that was tough to watch and understand, yes he hadn’t an attitude but surely as a coach your job is to help teach life skills and improve your athletes as people. He failed with that although the ending was very good, and I didn’t see it coming to be brutally honest.

As well as trying to get his life up and off the ground he was attempting to deal with first love and finding the right moment for sex with his girlfriend for the first time. I guess the story was that sometimes you have to lose everything to fully appreciate it and then want to push on and be a better person. Stefen was not the most likeable to begin with but with some very good characrer development he does win you over in the end.

A very early role for Tom Cruise and impressive as ever, surely this was a glimpse of what was to come from the talented actor. He really has had so many types of roles over the years, it is truly impressive.

This wont go down as an epic sports film but still offers some valid and interesting insights into how high school sport was and how it has hopefully changed over the years.