All the Right Moves

All the Right Moves Movie Poster

"He has everything at stake.  He can't afford to lose.  He's got to make all the right moves."

All the Right Moves, starring Tom Cruise as Stef Djordjevic, Craig T. Nelson as Nickerson, and Lea Thompson as Lisa Lietzke, was released in 1983.  The movie received mixed reviews, and was not a great financial success for 20th Century Fox.

In this movie, Stef Djordjevic (Cruise) is a small town high school football star determined to escape the blue collar clutches of his environment.  The economy of his home town of Ampipe, PA is dominated by a steel mill, and Stef does not want to follow in his father's footsteps as a mill worker.

After the final game of the season, Stef's team loses, and he is blamed for the loss.  Coach Nickerson (Nelson) kicks Stef off the team, and his hopes for a future outside of Ampipe began to crumble.  Stef ends up getting blacklisted at several colleges after being wrongly accused of vandalizing the coach's house, Stef eventually confronts the coach, and after realizing the error, the coach makes sure Stef gets a scholarship to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.  If only life was always so easy.