Movie Review: An Officer And A Gentleman (1982)

A grand romance emerging from the hardship of military training and equally testing blue collar surroundings, An Officer And A Gentleman confirmed Richard Gere as a sensational heartthrob, and catapulted Debra Winger to stardom. Taylor Hackford directs a romantic drama rich with sub-texts related to personal ambition, military discipline, and the convolutions of relationships.

Zack Mayo (Gere), long neglected by his father (Robert Loggia), enlists in the Navy's Aviator Officer School in the Pugent Sound area of Washington State. The other candidates include Sid Worley (David Keith), Casey Seeger (Lisa Eilbacher) and Emiliano Della Serra (Tony Plana), and they are all soon battling through the hardship of the 13 week training program, guided by fierce drill sergeant Emil Foley (Louis Gossett, Jr.).

Mayo and Worley are class leaders and become friends. They meet two local girls who work at a nearby paper factory: Paula (Debra Winger) starts a friendship with Mayo that slowly but surely deepens into a relationship. Worley and Lynette (Lisa Blount) start with the sex and then explore the benefits of a friendship.

As the training progresses, Foley has to knock the traces of self-centred arrogance out of Mayo to turn him into an effective leader; Paula starts to wonder if she has invested too much into a man who will likely never see her again once he graduates; and Lynette ponders a plan to make sure that Worley does not leave her. Mayo uncovers some shaky foundations to Worley's determination to succeed, and these character flaws threaten the graduation prospects of both men. With the training coming to an end, Mayo, Worley, Paula and Lynette have to make the difficult choices that will determine their destinies.

It is rare for a romance to appeal equally to both sexes, but An Officer And A Gentleman successfully pushes all the right buttons for men and women. The glamour of overcoming the rigorous training regime and becoming a navy aviator resonates strongly with the male psyche. The local girl falling in love and being swept off her feet - literally, in this case - by the handsome prince (or officer in uniform, as the case may be) underpins every girl's childhood fantasy.

The script by Douglas Day Stewart weaves a simple modern day tale around the quest for man to become a warrior, and the quest for woman to secure a warrior for herself, and adds in a clever layer of demonstrated failure: anything that can go wrong does go wrong, and suddenly, in the relationship between Worley and Lynette. Not all men will become leaders, and not all women will succeed in finding a knight in shining armour.

Director Taylor Hackford, entering a peak personal era of delivering complex romances that would include Against All Odds, White Nights, and Everybody's All American, teases out five excellent performances out of his cast. Gere's Mayo displays a surprisingly respectful steely resolve to succeed, pushing aside his more rebellious nature to obey, for the most part, the punishing instructions of Foley. Winger plays the deceptively doe-eyed Paula with a tender spunkiness, her glamour downgraded to suit the local poor girl from a blue-collar family. Gere and Winger immediately find sizzling chemistry, culminating in a sex scene that has retained its crackling heat over the decades.

In support, Louis Gossett, Jr. won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his Gunnery Sergeant Foley, a role that would become indelibly associated with the actor. Mercilessly spitting nails and an endless stream of insults and profanities, Gossett brings a disciplined but manic intensity to the role of transforming wannabe fighter pilots into navy officers.

David Keith and Lisa Blount play a substantial role in the success of An Officer And A Gentleman, in secondary roles that refreshingly undergo their own compelling transformations. Keith's Worley is much less certain than Mayo about why he wants to be an officer, but it takes him a tragically long time to realize this. When he finally comes to terms with his life's decisions, he is in the clutches of unforeseen trouble. Blount, in the best role of her career, is haunting as she gradually reveals Lynette as the most dangerous obstacle facing the trainees: beneath the fun and frolicking, Lynette has a deadly serious and selfish objective.

With Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes belting out the spine-tingling Up Where We Belong as the romance between Mayo and Paula climaxes unforgettably on the factory floor in the final scene, An Officer And A Gentleman secures its place among Hollywood's greatest love stories.

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Movie Review: Proof Of Life (2000)

A romantic triangle set amidst the drama of a businessman's kidnapping in South America, Proof Of Life is engaging but flawed. A spluttering romance never quite catches fire, and an all-guns-blazing finale undermines the character-centred drama that the film patiently constructs.

Peter Bowman (David Morse) is an American construction manager, supervising a dam project in the fictional South American country of Tecala. His wife Alice (Meg Ryan) is having a hard time adjusting to life in Tecala, resulting in significant tension within the marriage. The day after a big argument, Peter is kidnapped by guerrillas belonging to the Liberation Army of Tecala (ELT) and marched at gunpoint deep into the inhospitable mountains. Terry Thorne (Russell Crowe) works for a British consulting firm that specializes in negotiating hostage releases. Assigned to Peter's case, Terry meets Alice but is called back to London due to Peter's company having no kidnap insurance coverage. But Terry's brief encounter with Alice caused a connection, and he decides to return and help her on a freelance basis.

Over several months Terry conducts arduous negotiations to agree on a price for the release of Peter, while a strong attraction evolves between Terry and Alice. Terry also meets up with other hostage consultants working in Tecala, including the fiery Dino (David Caruso). Peter, meanwhile, struggles to stay alive and sane in a remote ramshackle jungle camp, where some of the guerrillas are looking for any opportunity to physically harm him while others see his value as a healthy hostage. Despite Terry's best efforts, the negotiations break down, Peter's life is thrown into jeopardy, and Terry and Dino need to decide if more drastic action is warranted, in the form of a military rescue attempt.

Director Taylor Hackford has a resume filled with flawed gems, including Against All Odds, White Nights and Everybody's All-American. Proof Of Life is littered with question marks that perforate the credibility of Tony Gilroy's script. Central to the movie's purpose, Terry's motivation for coming back to help Alice is never convincingly dealt with; the coincidence that helps Terry to identify the ELT negotiator is wild-eyed; and late in the proceeding, the reasons for the ELT sparing Peter's life on the jungle mountainside are vague. The sudden transformation of Terry from a suave negotiator to a mercenary joining a group of suddenly heavily-armed westerners launching a hastily planned jungle raid in a foreign land is also quite jarring.

Helping to traverse the rocky patches in the longish running time of 135 minute are three strong central performances. Meg Ryan in particular shines as Alice, finding the dilemma zone between fear, frustration, worry for the fate of a missing husband and growing affection for the man now in control of her life. Russell Crowe is comfortably confident as a man who rarely encounters any situation that he cannot control to his advantage. David Morse has the difficult task of playing the missing third point in the triangle, and he does well as a man who grabs onto the thought and image of his wife to maintain sanity in prolonged captivity. In an ironic example of life somewhat imitating art, the filming of Proof Of Life sparked a real-life relationship between Ryan and Crowe, destroying Ryan's marriage to Dennis Quaid.

Proof Of Life does benefit from some intentional loose ends related to the future happiness of the main characters. This is a welcome change from routine happy endings, and consistent with a common theme in Hackford's films: relationships are difficult, messy, and not always cheerful.

Proof Of Life's greatest strength is its relatively unique setting and stressful backdrop, exploring the rich territory of romance flourishing in times of extreme tension, when the normalcy of life is overturned and the well-established rules of day-to-day living are forcefully abandoned. Falling in love is one proof of life when there appears to be little to live for.

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Movie Review: Everybody's All-American (1988)

Everybody's All-American tries hard to be an epic love story between life-long soul-mates Gavin Grey (Dennis Quaid) and Babs Rogers (Jessica Lange). As suggested by its clumsy title, it succeeds only partially, mainly because there is a gaping hole where the foundations of the love story should have been established. The movie skips over any early defining moments that glue the two characters together. As a result, the emotional impacts of the struggles, fights, and reconciliations that rock their relationship are significantly weakened.

Football player Gavin "The Grey Ghost" Grey is a college star who leads Louisiana State University to a legendary Sugar Bowl victory in the 1950's. His professional career with the Washington Redskins through the 1960's is a bit less glamorous, and he encounters personal tragedy with the murder of his college friend and team-mate; financial woes; and ups-and-downs in his marriage to his college sweetheart Babs.

The story of Gavin and Babs, much like the movie, generally hums along in third gear. Everybody's All-American never risks a truly horrible moment thanks to the talent involved, and yet rarely strikes any truly memorable high notes.

Dennis Quaid goes through 25 years as Gavin Grey without much alternation to his physical appearance, except for some belly fat in later years. He provides two modes for Gavin: the charming, self-effacing hero or the half-drunk somewhat angry husband.

Jessica Lange does better as Babs, and works her character's struggle between proper Southern manners and bold real-world ambition quite well. She conclusively earns her top billing in the movie.

Timothy Hutton is along for the ride as Gavin's nephew and awkward third point in a clumsy love triangle -- his main purpose appears to be announcing the changing years with new hair styles and facial hair, since Gavin obviously kept the same barber for 25 years.

There is an interesting but poorly developed sub-plot involving the character of Narvel Blue (Carl Lumbly), a black friend of Gavin's who gets involved in the Civil Rights movement. For all their good intentions, the scenes involving Blue seem to belong to a whole different movie, perhaps starring Sidney Poitier.

Taylor Hackford directs Thomas Rickman's script from Frank Deford's novel with a split focus on attempting to recreate either the grand romance of his classic An Officer And A Gentleman (1982) or the turmoil of his flawed Against All Odds (1984). He misses both targets, of course, but while Everybody's All-American is never remarkable, it is certainly watchable.






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