Contrary to his delicious downer of a first film, the terrific “Big Fan,” Mr. Siegel doesn’t venture into risky areas here. He’s content to have these characters hang out in cars or at a diner while chewing the scenery and checking their beepers. If you came of age in the 1980s, that’s enough to enjoy.

Content-wise, Cruise is dull, with a script that brims of potential but is done injustice by uninspired leads.

Screenwriter Robert Siegel’s second directorial outing is better as an exercise in nostalgia than as a film, but it deserves some praise for its faithful recreation of a time and a place.

A coming-of-age melodrama seemingly displaced in time.