Criterion 4K Ultra HD Film Review

Risky Business (1983) • 4K Ultra HD [Criterion Collection] —coming-of-age comedy is one of Tom Cruise’s finest hours

A Chicago teenager is looking for fun at home while his parents are away, but the situation quickly gets out of hand.

Decades before the Tom Cruise brand was solidified — the one now defined by life-and-limb-risking stunt work, baffling TV interviews, and a hell-bent dedication to faith and film — he was just an actor. An actor with a 100-kilowatt smile.

That smile could be made out even under the gradients of black on the poster for Risky Business, which would be Cruise’s breakthrough role. It would not matter if audiences only ever saw Cruise’s face from the nose up — it could be assumed that his toothy grin remained undisturbed beneath.

What makes Risky Business such a pivotal film, though, is that Cruise’s switch from actor to movie star happens on screen. Like Marlon Brando wailing in the streets in his sophomore screen role, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), or Robert…