Review of An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) by Alayna H — 27 Dec 2007

Other than just running across this film, perhaps, in channel-surfing when I used to watch TV, or just seeing the name of it floating around, my first exposure to this film was actually a discussion with my father. He managed movie theatres in the late 70s and early 80s, and told me stories periodically about movies that flopped, failed, or were shock hits. Some things were not surprising (Raiders of the Lost Ark, I think, surprised no one, like The Empire Strikes Back) and some were (I can't for the life of me remember what he said was a flop and they tried doing midnight showings for instead, An American Werewolf in London, perhaps...)--and this one I think he said was one of the longest running while he was there. I think he, and everyone else, thought this was strange and kind of surprising. But I could be remembering this all wrong, so who knows? Regardless, even as he said it was surprising, with a tone suggesting it didn't quite deserve THAT much attention, I thought I had better see it, just because--and, hell, it's big enough, and did get an Oscar or two (or more, I'm not going to bother looking it up).

I actually just purchased this DVD, which technically places it "out of order" for my viewing schedules, but that's ok--I bought the original edition some months ago, perhaps a year, so I figure it balances out, because it WAS getting just a teensy bit ridiculous. Still, the point remains--I watched it just now, and that's that. I was a little surprised when "Up Where We Belong" began playing over the menu, thinking "Oh, so that's where that came from..." and "Hey, it's Joe Cocker!" simultaneously. Which doesn't really matter, but it was something I felt like noting. Nyah nyah. Maybe you think it's funny, now, that I didn't know the song came from here or instantly associate them, but such is life.

Anyway.

I'm used to Richard Gere being grey-haired with a whole pompadour type hairdo, or with the fluffy mane-style that he starts this movie with--but here it's his youthful, darkened hair colour. Kinda disorienting--nevermind that he starts off with an unshaven face, too. Almost didn't recognize him. He comes off as what his character is at the time, a down-and-out biker sort of guy, who is living a pretty empty life. He tries to wake his father from the two or three prostitutes he was sleeping with (!) and we begin to see his childhood--he joined his father, a Navy man, in the Philippine Islands after his mother killed herself, his father rejecting him, claiming he was too old and was not responsible for a child. We see how this has affected Zack Mayo (Gere), and how little it affected his father (Robert Loggia! Who I can never recognize for some reason--or rather, I recognize him and go, "Now who the hell is that?"--you'd think with a voice like that I'd have no trouble, and so I don't, in going, "Hey, that voice..." but no. It won't stick). He informs his father that he has joined the Navy, which seems like an awfully conflicted decision for someone so negatively impacted by his father's own military career, a sort of misguided, passive-aggressive idolizing move, as well as a last resort of a kind. At which point I thought, "Hey, maybe this isn't QUITE so surface as I expected..."--sort of like the other Taylor Hackford movie I've seen and own, The Devil's Advocate. Neither is an extreme work of art or fantastically original movie, but neither sludges along through boring, familiar tripe, or when it does, it brings something else into it that's interesting.

The rest of the film focuses on the training Zack Mayo(nnaise, as Foley "cutely" nicknames him) and his class go through, under the tutelage, instruction and insults of Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley (Louis Gossett, Jr., who earned his supporting actor award, and first impressed me as "Jerry" the Drak in Enemy Mine). His class includes David Keith (finally giving me a face to associate with "that guy whose name is backwards from the awesome Keith David"--who I apparently saw in Brubaker, but had not previously identified) as Sid Worley, the Okie whose brother was in the service and died in Vietnam two years prior and is trying to support his brother's memory, Lisa Eilbacher as Casey Seeger (who I apparently should know as Jenny from Beverly Hills Cop, and will soon see again in Peter Weller vehicle--and oft-criticized "Alien rip-off"--Leviathan) the primary female character in the class who is working to prove her equality with regard to the rest of the primarily male class, Harold Sylvester as Perryman (another one I've seen and not noticed, this time in Innerspace), the married man who is not the best at belt buckle polishing and worries constantly about being kicked out, and two young actors--David Caruso (here a lot more awkward with a big gap between his teeth, and kind of a loser) and Tony Plana (who wanders in and out of almost everything, including Stone's JFK).

The focus, overall, though is on "Pugent Sound Debs"--the women who live near the Naval academy and try to gain aviator husbands from the school by taking them to bed quickly, or trapping them with pregnancy. Paula (Debra Winger) and Lynette (Lisa Blount--who was in the excellent Dead & Buried, might I add) meet up with Zack and Sid respectively, each falling quickly for the other, meeting up primarily for sex over the course of the two Officer Candidates' time in training, and all well aware of the risks they were all taking--that the men would leave once they were finished there, that the women would try and trap them. Sid is a softie and a good friend, and falls pretty hard for Lynette, though he doesn't admit that--or most things--to himself, and Zack is mistrusting and solitary, while Paula is a woman obviously letdown previously but still secretly hopeful, and Lynette is interested in the aviator part of a husband. It's interesting to see how these things shift and change in the characters, pretty well written and put together, showing us the nature of all four characters, and occasionally surprising us a bit--or at least getting in that moment where, yes, they finally do it--that thing we hoped or thought they wouldn't, but sort of knew they would anyway.

I've gotta say though--huh? Jack Nitsche wrote the music to "Up Where We Belong"? The guy who scored One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Weird. I mean, I'm me, I am a total sucker for 80's-style overproduced nonsense, so it works for me, but I sort of cringe next to myself, knowing how most people I know would react to such a song, even as I enjoy it well enough. Strong writing and direction, with a decent plot and no shame about dashing into schmaltzy territory, but never giving into it to the point of putting tongue in cheek, nor letting it fall flat makes for a pretty darn entertaining movie.

Oh, and Gossett really reminded me of ol' R. Lee Ermey, even pulling out some lines I knew from Full Metal Jacket--with good reason, apparently, since it seems Ermey trained him for the role. Nice to see that, unlike in Full Metal Jacket, they had someone with enough internal strength and intensity (though with the touch of softness the role called for) that Ermey did not, again, have to replace him.