“Top Gun” did more to restore the military in the
public’s eye going into the Persian Gulf War than any other war movie. It was not designed to do that. Jerry Bruckheimer and his partner Don Simpson
got the idea for the film from an article about the Navy’s Fighter Weapons
School in San Diego. They were drawn by
the title of the article – “Top Gun”.
That would make a kick-ass title for a film about a rebel who learns to
be a team player with the help of a hot chick.
Why not supersize it with $37 million F-14 Tomcats and a pulsating rock
sound track? And laugh all the way to the bank.
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| Trust me, America. This ain't Vietnam. |
The film opens in the Indian Ocean “present day”, so
don’t even think the movie is about the Vietnam War. MiGs (F-5s painted black in case you have
trouble distinguishing bad guys) are threatening one of our aircraft
carriers. An F-14 pilot named “Maverick”
(in case you have trouble determining a character’s personality) flies upside
down over the camel fighter jock (the enemy is never identified, but we are
encouraged to see them as Middle Eastern).
Maverick (Tom Cruise) gives him the finger. America, f*** yeah! The MiG scampers because it is obvious this
is no longer the panty-waist U.S. military of the 1970s. Unfortunately, the best pilot on the carrier
(“Cougar”) freaks out over having an enemy fighter tail him. Apparently no one ever told him that was part
of his job. Maverick has to help him
land (disobeying orders in the process, of course). Mav gets the obligatory reaming when he
returns, but on the plus side Cougar’s spot for Fighter Weapons School is now
open. Who better to fill it than the
pilot who is always in trouble?
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| MiG at 3 o'clock. It must be a bogey because it's painted black. Permission to inspire a Pepsi commercial? |
Maverick and his back seater “Goose” (Anthony
Edwards) are off to San Diego and just like the week before a college session,
there is time for some partying and tail chasing (the other kind). Maverick’s go-to move is to sing “Loving
Feeling” to his target for a one night stand.
This one scene can serve as a litmus test of whether you will like this
movie. Charlie (Kelly McGillis) brushes
him off because first base never comes in the first inning of a war movie. You’ll never guess who the expert on MiGs is
at the school. Wait, since the movie is
fictional, go ahead and guess. Part of
the schooling involves mock dogfighting so we can have some breaks from the
smoochy parts. The head trainer is the
gruff “Jester” (Michael Ironsides). He’s
the kind of jock whose cockpit chatter includes “You can run, but you cannot
hide”. He takes a liking to Maverick
because dogfighting is not all about the rules. You don’t want to discourage a warrior, you
just want to rein him in a bit.
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| I'd like to give a huge shout-out to my agent, but a big f-u to the cinematographer who dissed my abs |
There are two romantic subplots in the movie. Maverick is wooing “Charlie”. At the same time, he has this homoerotic
thing going on with his rival “Ice Man” (Val Kilmer). Or did I misread the sweaty, shirtless
volleyball game? It is a race to see who
Maverick will go to bed with first.
Meanwhile, Maverick lives up to his nickname in training and even gets
someone killed. This facilitates the
requisite personal crisis common in movies of this ilk. It will take some kind of national crisis to
get Maverick back in the saddle and to bring the movie to a rousing,
rock-fueled climax that will have the audience cheering.
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| What do you mean by "actions have consequences"? And what does "hubris" mean? |
“Top Gun” was a huge hit. It tapped into the
patriotism of the Reagan Eighties.
People were tired of the self-flagellation of the Vietnam War movies and
the angst of the Seventies. The movie
purposely avoided any reference to the Vietnam War except to specify that
Maverick was seeking redemption for some vague mistake his father made in
that war. In a sense, the movie was
seeking redemption from the American public for the Vietnam War. It could be stretched to theorize that the
success of the movie helped America to feel good about its military again and may
have thus paved the way for our cocky intervention in the Persian Gulf
War. Interestingly, “Heartbreak Ridge”
came out the same year, but had less success with rehabilitating the military. The time was right for those types of
flag-wavers.
The Pentagon sensed this vibe and gave enormous
cooperation to the filmmakers.
Bruckheimer and Simpson were aided by the military’s belief that they
had made a big mistake in giving “An Officer and a Gentleman” the cold
shoulder. The Navy swagged the movie
with two aircraft carriers, Miramar Naval Air Station, a bevy of F-14s, and the
technical advisers that came with them.
Although it was claimed that the script was not meant to stimulate
recruiting, it did have this effect
which means the military support was well-rewarded. The cooperation extended to chilling out on
the usual over-protectiveness of Navy morals.
The script was allowed to show fighter pilots partying and behaving like
frat boys. In other words, the movie
depicts the pilots like all the other twentysomething males in Eighties
movies. Unfortunately, the unintended
consequence is that a Pentagon investigation would later partially blame the
Tailhook scandal on “Top Gun”! The one
script adjustment agreed to was making Charlie a civilian. In other words, the Pentagon insisted on
ludicrous over simply ridiculous.
All this historical significance for a movie that is
parody bait. (See “Hot Shots!”) It is another war movie aimed at fourteen year
old boys and girlfriends of older guys.
The boys get the rock sound track, the locker room hijinks, and the
awesome dogfighting. The females get the
fantasy of a non-hottie getting Tom Cruise and a bunch of good bad-boys
swatting each other with towels. The
script does not leave its demographic ponder-challenged. All of the scenarios are contrived and
hammily foreshadowed. The narrative arc
has existed for decades of war movies. Boy is rebel, boy meets girl, girl flirts with
boy, boy gets girl, boy has personal crisis on the way to redemption, girl helps
boy overcome adversity. (The PG-13 romance was
apparently meant to not offend President Reagan.) Speaking of clichés, the movie is not as bad
as many, but it does have: the main character loses his best friend and
considers himself responsible, a pilot is obsessed with proving himself, a
maverick learns to fit in, a pilot rides a motorcycle.
The only strength of the movie is the aerial scenes. There are some cool dogfights and none of
that off-putting CGI. In fact, the
Tomcats do the best acting in the movie.
The three main characters are ridiculous and the actors don’t help
distract from this. How much respect do
you have for your audience if you make Charlie an astro-physicist who teaches
MiG fighter tactics at Fightertown?
There is no chemistry between Cruise and McGillis. McGillis was a head-scratching choice for the
role. She is not hot enough to overcome
the underwritten role. Cruise and Kilmer
deserve kudos for having the chutzpah to nosh their ludicrous roles with the
laughable dialogue that reaches a crescendo with the closing: “You can be my wingman anytime.” “Bull shit, you can be mine.”
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| As in every romantic comedy, there must be conflict before the kiss |
Quantity of box office receipts is not a good way to
determine the quality of a movie. “Top
Gun” was the highest grossing film of the year.
Not to mention the sales of the sound track. It was critically acclaimed - by the public. But I would counsel against using winning the People’s Choice
Award for Favorite Motion Picture to determine how good a movie is. The cruel fact is that from a war movie
perspective, this movie stinks. It is somewhat entertaining if you can laugh instead of weep over the plot and acting. Good drinking game – drink every time Cruise gives his patented shit-eating grin. You’ll soon be drunk and then the rest of the movie will be more enjoyable.
GRADE = D
DEEP QUESTIONS:
If every airman’s nickname
tells you about them, why is Bradshaw called “Goose”?
Why did Maverick get
Goose’s dog tags instead of his wife and why would Maverick honor him by
throwing them in the ocean?
Why doesn’t recklessly
causing the death of a Top Gun candidate get you washed out of the school? Especially after you had already been
reprimanded.
THE TRAILER
THE HONEST TRAILER
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