Top Gun is my favorite high energy, feel good movie.
From the opening, which captures in slow motion and stark silhouettes the deck of an aircraft carrier in the early dawn mist, set to Kenny Loggins's "Danger Zone", to the final scene where two F-14 Tomcat fighter jets perform a barrel roll against a vivid orange sunset sky, set to the music of the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost that Loving Feeling," Top Gun is about an aesthetically pleasing film that you will find for any young red blooded American male.
This is the movie that made Tom Cruise a star, and he in turn is a main reason for the success of the movie. With the call sign of "Maverick," Cruise's character is a brash, cocky but fun loving and likeable fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy. His navigator, "Goose," played by Anthony Edwards, is an excellent foil to Maverick. The movie is the story of their adventures at a flight school designed to teach the best fighter pilots in the Navy how to become even better. The pilots call the school "Top Gun."
If there must be an antagonist in this movie, it is "Ice Man," played nicely by Val Kilmer. Ice Man and Maverick compete against each other for the Top Gun trophy, or best fighter pilot in the Navy.
The movie is the finest one that I have seen from director Tony Scott. Scott was selected to be the director of the movie because he was the only person the producers could find who had filmed jets (He had previously filmed a car commercial where a Saab automobile races a jet).
Scott does a magnificent job of setting the jets against beautiful colors- the brilliant blue skies and white clouds, the brown desert mountains, the dark ocean, and of course incredible shots that come with the planes flying at sunrise or sunset.
The way that he captures the flight of the planes in the film is a wonderful thing to watch as well. These are real jets, and obviously not computer generated maneuvers using computer graphic planes. This element is another reason for the movie's success. Though computer graphics were not really around in 1986 when this movie came out, if one tried to make Top Gun with simulated F-14s, it just would not work.
Tony Scott fills the film with beautiful people as well. Kelly McGillis glows on the screen as Top Gun civilian instructor, "Charlie," and Maverick's love interest.
The supporting cast do a great job, with Tom Skerritt effectively playing the head of the Top Gun school who teaches Maverick a few lessons about flying and about life. James Tolkan is entertaining as captain of the aircraft carrier that takes Maverick into combat.
Top Gun is one of the few films about which I really have nothing negative to say. It goes beyond what Scott and the writers set out to do- give the audience a tremendous thrill ride with enough realism to make the movie seem true to what being a pilot in the Navy must actually be like. It is no wonder that enlistments in the Navy skyrocketed after this movie came out, and recruiters begin setting up stands outside theaters where the film was playing. Tony Scott joked about how many poor guys ended up mopping the decks deep inside a ship because they signed up for the Navy, thinking they would live the Top Gun adventure.
To change the subject to something quite sad, it hit me hard earlier this year when I learned that Tony Scott had committed suicide. I would very much like to know why he did it. There is no judgment from me, as I've seen enough now of this world to understand that life can bring so much pain as to make death appear as a sweet release. But I would like to have a conversation with Scott, just to understand why he chose to jump off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in California back in August. It would help me to understand the human condition better to know why he did it, as he was a tremendous artist who had a good understanding of the human condition himself. No reason for his suicide is given from everything that I've been able to read.
I own the special edition DVD of Top Gun, and the commentary track is excellent. The actual pilots who flew the planes in the movie tell interesting stories, as does Tony Scott. I almost feel like I get to know the man as he relates various anecdotal tales about filming Top Gun- such as how he was fired and rehired three times during the filming of the movie (once for making Kelly McGillis look too "whorish" with high heeled shoes, dark panty hose and bright red lipstick).
At the end of his commentary track, he talks about how much Top Gun changed his life. Previously, he had made a film called The Hunger, which was a commercial failure and, in his own words, nearly got him blacklisted in Hollywood. After The Hunger, he said, the phone never rang for four years until he got Top Gun. After Top Gun, though, the phone never stopped ringing. He moved to L.A. permanently after Top Gun, he said, bought a Ferrari and a motorcycle, and lost his second marriage. "Anyhow," he closes, "I hope you guys enjoyed the movie, and thank you."
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