"An Officer and a Gentleman." Good title. It pretty much sums up the story of Richard Gere's aviation midshipman undergoing a tough training course in the Northwest. He comes from a seedy background and is mean and selfish. He meets a girl from the nearby factory, Deborah Winger, whom he relies on for sex and comfort during his 12-weeks of misery. She, in turn, is the daughter of an unknown aviation cadet in a class twenty-two years ago, and is looking for a way out of this dead-end existence through marriage to a naval aviator. The two meet at a dance, exit the premises, go down to the beach and boff -- he for kicks, she because she's loose and likes him. Will Richard Gere overcome his egocentricity? Will he graduate as an ensign and go on to flight school? Will he realize that his feelings for Winger are more than those he would feel for just another play toy? Will be become an "officer" AND a "gentleman"? Answer: You don't need a Magic 8-ball.
It's kind of an interesting movie. It's certainly one of Gere's best performances. Under the torment of Lou Gossett Jr.'s Gunnery Sergeant, he's at one point reduced to a mud-covered tortured shambles and screams out abjectly, "I got no place else to GO!" His face is all twisted out of its handsomeness and his usual arrogance is nowhere in sight.
Winger's role is rather more complicated. If Gere's principal concern must shift from himself to the other members of the team, well, it does so on cue. But Winger's motives are ambiguous from the beginning, even to herself. She's interested in Gere from the start, yes, but she's also interested in HER career as an ordinary bourgeois, fixing bacon and eggs for her man in some exotic locale perhaps, bearing him children. Her motives don't change so much as they intensify as she comes to bond with Gere. And yet, rather than trap him with a false pregnancy or something, she's willing to give him up when he shows signs of reluctance to pursue their affair beyond the stage of an amuse-bouche.
Speaking of fake pregnancies, that's part of the subplot involving David Keith, a fellow classmate, and HIS girlfriend, one of Winger's coworkers at the factory. Keith gives up everything for his supposedly pregnant partner, resigns from the Navy, buys her a wedding ring and immediately proposes marriage so he can take her back to meet the family in Oklahoma where he has a job as floor manager waiting for him at J. C. Penny. FLOOR MANAGER? She is waiting for bread and he brings her stones. Like any sensible shark, she tells him what he can do with his wedding ring. After he goes to a motel and does it, he hangs himself.
There is a terrific martial arts slug out at the end in which Gossett, the instructor, manages to save himself only be delivering a hard kick to Gere's family jewels. I haven't quite figured that out yet. Why was an unfair blow necessary? Granted that Gere must discover that he can be defeated. As far as maturity goes, he has a lot of catching up to do. But surely he knows by now that life is unfair, so he doesn't need a painful reminder. Is it just that the writers didn't want to risk showing Richard Gere being beaten in a fair fight? That's kind of how it looks. By the way, writers, when a man is kicked there he doesn't fall to the ground in a fetal position and choke. He falls to the ground in a fetal position and screams bloody murder.
The script is part of the problem with this film. Absolutely nobody could be as naive and stupid as David Keith's midshipman. He's a nice guy but he doesn't seem to have any insight at all, into himself or into others. He doesn't deserve to be a naval aviator. He deserves to be a Steward's Mate Third Class.
It's as if the writers figured something like, let's put Richard Gere through midshipman training so we can watch him suffer, and then we'll have him fall for Deborah Winger. This schematic skeleton is then fitted out with disproportionate, sometimes flabby limbs and extrusions. The script really needed some buffing, at least as much as a midshipman's buckle. It's a colorful movie, with plenty of interesting action and some nice performances, but it's a bit sloppily done.
It's kind of an interesting movie. It's certainly one of Gere's best performances. Under the torment of Lou Gossett Jr.'s Gunnery Sergeant, he's at one point reduced to a mud-covered tortured shambles and screams out abjectly, "I got no place else to GO!" His face is all twisted out of its handsomeness and his usual arrogance is nowhere in sight.
Winger's role is rather more complicated. If Gere's principal concern must shift from himself to the other members of the team, well, it does so on cue. But Winger's motives are ambiguous from the beginning, even to herself. She's interested in Gere from the start, yes, but she's also interested in HER career as an ordinary bourgeois, fixing bacon and eggs for her man in some exotic locale perhaps, bearing him children. Her motives don't change so much as they intensify as she comes to bond with Gere. And yet, rather than trap him with a false pregnancy or something, she's willing to give him up when he shows signs of reluctance to pursue their affair beyond the stage of an amuse-bouche.
Speaking of fake pregnancies, that's part of the subplot involving David Keith, a fellow classmate, and HIS girlfriend, one of Winger's coworkers at the factory. Keith gives up everything for his supposedly pregnant partner, resigns from the Navy, buys her a wedding ring and immediately proposes marriage so he can take her back to meet the family in Oklahoma where he has a job as floor manager waiting for him at J. C. Penny. FLOOR MANAGER? She is waiting for bread and he brings her stones. Like any sensible shark, she tells him what he can do with his wedding ring. After he goes to a motel and does it, he hangs himself.
There is a terrific martial arts slug out at the end in which Gossett, the instructor, manages to save himself only be delivering a hard kick to Gere's family jewels. I haven't quite figured that out yet. Why was an unfair blow necessary? Granted that Gere must discover that he can be defeated. As far as maturity goes, he has a lot of catching up to do. But surely he knows by now that life is unfair, so he doesn't need a painful reminder. Is it just that the writers didn't want to risk showing Richard Gere being beaten in a fair fight? That's kind of how it looks. By the way, writers, when a man is kicked there he doesn't fall to the ground in a fetal position and choke. He falls to the ground in a fetal position and screams bloody murder.
The script is part of the problem with this film. Absolutely nobody could be as naive and stupid as David Keith's midshipman. He's a nice guy but he doesn't seem to have any insight at all, into himself or into others. He doesn't deserve to be a naval aviator. He deserves to be a Steward's Mate Third Class.
It's as if the writers figured something like, let's put Richard Gere through midshipman training so we can watch him suffer, and then we'll have him fall for Deborah Winger. This schematic skeleton is then fitted out with disproportionate, sometimes flabby limbs and extrusions. The script really needed some buffing, at least as much as a midshipman's buckle. It's a colorful movie, with plenty of interesting action and some nice performances, but it's a bit sloppily done.