Rich Man’s 21–both a story about winning big and going for broke, but Tom Cruise is way more charismatic than Jim Sturgess (sorry Jim!).

★★★☆☆

Risky Business (as if you already didn’t know), is the 1983 dramedy that help jumpstart the career of one Thomas Cruise Mapother IV — better known as Tom Cruise. It’s a simple story about a boy, a car, and a call girl. If you don’t already know the movie I’m describing, you would probably remember it best as the movie that contains the iconic, oft-parodied scene that as inspiration for all the frat parties you never got invited to, said it didn’t bother you, but secretly wanted to attend. You know, the one with Tom Cruise sliding around in his underwear to “Old Time Rock and Roll”? Here, I’ll just link it for you.

Risky Business is among the eightiest of eighties movies. Firstly, the Tom Cruise sidekick / best friend is played by Curtis Armstrong, who deserves a lifetime achievement award for being every 80’s leading guy’s number two. The plot centers around Tom’s parents going out of town. And Tom, being a classic gen-x’r, is just looking for ways to rebel in their absence. His rebellion leads to the wacky antics, but I don’t feel like I really need to dive deep into this movie. It’s a lot of what I expected, and what I expected was good not great. So instead of focusing on Risky Business, I want to talk about something nearer and dearer to my heart: Tom Cruise.

I have long been of the opinion that Tom Cruise is an amazing actor who is held back by his good looks and general oddities. Being forced into the leading man role early stifled what could have otherwise been an even more incredible acting career. Risky Business is his 5th feature film and only his second movie where he received top billing. And yet, even this early in his career you could already see the marks of the Tom Cruise we’ve all come to know (and I’ve come to love).

On a recent episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, Bill was discussing actors and actresses movie ‘moves’. The one thing that they always do in their movies. For example, Julia Robert’s is always on the moral high ground of someone else and usually proves it through getting really really pissed at them. He and Wesley Morris start talking about Cruise’s move and come to the conclusion that he doesn’t have one; instead, he has many. And that’s really what’s so great about Cruise: he is so familiar to us that when Bill Simmons talks about his “deer-in-the-headlights, it’s-all-dawning-on-me, I-need-to-look-away” move, I knew exactly what he was talking about. Even so, when that move came up in Risky Business, I bought it all over again.

My belief that Tom Cruise is one of our finest working actors is not a new one. In fact it’s a discussion David and I have had a lot. And one I’ve even attempted to quantify. I rate actors on two different scales — skill and popularity. Each scale moves from -10 to 10 with 0 being average (by Hollywood actor’s standards). I think the incredible thing about Tom Cruise is that he is one of the few people that can end up with a combined score of 18+. Check it out for yourself!

For each scale, I’ve included a 0 that is helpful for determining rather someone should be below or above them. In skill, I chose Mark Wahlberg, who has had an up down career but has had flashes when paired with a great director. In popularity, I chose Alan Rickman whose face is familiar to most, but when he turns up in a movie it’s ‘Hey it’s Hans Gruber!’ or ‘Hey it’s Severus Snape!’ rather than by his actual name. There are few actors who are in the 18+ club with Tom.

The only knock to Cruise’s skill is that it’s really hard to forget you are watching Tom Cruise, but that’s because he’s freaking Tom Cruise! He is a generational acting talent. Like, Robert Redford and Cary Grant, his charisma jumps off screen as soon as you see him. Studios consider it a sin to cover up his face with masks or make-up. He will never be able to disappear into a role the way Gary Oldman can, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Cruise’s talent is that he feels like he belongs just about anywhere. We buy him as a spy, a sports agent, a disgraced soldier, and any number of combinations of cool guy with cool job roles. And just because he’s ‘always Tom Cruise’ as his detractors will tell you, doesn’t mean he’s not an amazing actor.

Tom Cruise was thrust into the leading man role so early in his career, that I can’t help but feel we were cheated out of an even greater career. Look at Jude Law and Matthew McConaughey to see what can happen when that shackle is lifted. But even with that hanging over his head, he still managed to brings us incredible performances across all kinds of genres. Tom Cruise has given us emotionally driven performances in Born on The Fourth of July and Jerry McGuire. In Rain Man (one of Cruise’s best roles — go back and pay attention to his mannerisms) he allows himself to take a back seat and uses his role in the movie to heighten the work of Dustin Hoffman. And of course he even gave us the ultimate cameo with Tropic Thunder, a silly role but that shows a lot of range. Tropic Thunder and to a lesser extent his against-type (he plays a coward and a deserter instead of the traditional hero / badass) performance in Edge of Tomorrow also show that Cruise is aware of how we perceive him and he’s willing to feed into that or go against it for the sake of his craft. He’s been a staple of box offices for years now, and shows no sign of slowing down. Studios are still eager to cast the 53 year-old Cruise in the leading roles of big blockbusters (Edge of Tomorrow in 2014, Mission Impossible 4 in 2015). I hope that Cruise will also split up his action films to take a few more chances on the next Magnolia or Vanilla Sky which have been missing from his resume this past decade. But whatever type of Cruise you choose to watch — enjoy him while you can. Oh, and if you haven’t, go watch Risky Business.

Risky Business is available on Netflix.

Next week, David will be watching Let the Right One In. I’ve tried to make him forget how much he hates reading movies in time to give him a great treat for this halloween season. When I first saw this movie, I found myself fascinated by the simple pacing and story laid out in Tomas Alfredson’s world. I know David shares my doubt about horror movies, but it’s Halloween and I had too.