Top Gun

Seemingly innocuous movies don't get much more insidious then this ode to patriotic pilots who save America by grinning a lot and flying "by the seat of their pants." This, of course, was the movie which began America's unfortuante love affair with the producing duo of Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, which went on to make hits like The Rock and Bad Boys (although they had already made the cultural contributions of Flashdance and Beverly Hills Cop). If you doubt the foolhardy macho posturing messages this team sends out in their movies, check out the moment in The Rock where Sean Connery growls, "Winners go home and f*ck the prom queen," when poor Nicolas Cage says he'll try his best. Substitute your teacher for the prom queen, and you have the philosophical statement that Top Gun makes. There are phalluses on the original poster. You may think those are planes, but they're just another way of stating the theme of Top Gun, a movie where wimpy Anthony Edwards, supposedly a nice guy, dies in a plane crash. Sure, you may think it's just a tragic plot element, but in reality Edwards dies because he's married...with children.

Macho posing aside, Top Gun is a breezy and entertaining movie which instantly vanishes from your memory as soon as the credits have rolled. In it, naval pilot Maverick (Tom Cruise, who gets to do a minor motorcycle scene in this movie, but nothing to match MI:2) trains at the Navy's top fighter pilot school on how to dogfight with buddy Goose (Anthony Edwards, who would later become a minor star on ER). He falls in love with civilian plane expert Charlie (Kelly McGillis) and has sex with her a lot before going on to save the world from evil Commie pilots, all the while continuing a rivalry with fellow pilot Iceman (Val Kilmer).

Long before Michael Bay, Tony Scott was the action auteur of choice (I use the term lightly). This was his first big hit, and it is suitably video-gamish. Every single scene is funny, whether or not it's intended as such. Take, for example, the sex scene between McGillis and Tom Cruise. All we see is the upper half of both of their bodies (the guy, of course, is on top). We see Tom Cruise's powerful muscles in the blue monochrome which the scene is shot in. We see McGillis and Cruise kissing, and the backlighting is so powerful we actually see McGillis' tongue enter Tom Cruise's mouth. Such overstatement is at the heart of the movie, along with the flying scenes, which are skillful, if a little confusing. The performances are all one-note. Future director/actor Tim Robbins gives no indication of his future performance (perhaps because his face is covered with a fighter pilot helmet for the whole movie).

This movie is totally synthetic from beginning to end and devoid of recognizably human characters, but mildly enjoyable for the critical and vastly enjoyable for the passive viewer.

Printable Version