Officier et gentleman

Richard Gere plays Zack Mayo, a prospective Navy Officer training cadet who must decide to gain control over his direction-less life, helped by a no-nonsense Gunnery sergeant(superbly played by Louis Gossett Jr., who won an Academy Award) who berates Zack, but all in the effort of making him into a successful Naval officer. Debra Winger plays his girlfriend, who is also struggling with her own life. They both have friends(played by David Keith and Lisa Blount) whose relationship mirrors their own, only with far different results.

Entertaining and old-fashioned(in some ways!) film is well acted by its stars, and has stylish direction by Taylor Hackford. Story is surprisingly involving(if a bit predictable) and builds to a satisfying conclusion with the winning song "Up Where We Belong".

A big hit that made its leads stars.

This has to be Richard Gere's best movie and the one movie I felt he deserved an Oscar nomination for. I read once that his role of Zach Mayo was first offered to John Denver. It is impossible to think of anyone else in the role which is one indication of how good Gere was. Lou Gossett, Jr. steals the show and gets a deserved Oscar as Gunnery Sergeant Foley. Debra Winger is also delectable as Paula, Zach's working class girlfriend. I had read that Winger had a real problem doing the nude scenes with Gere and felt very uncomfortable being undressed in front of the camera. Supposedly the scene in which she is crying while making love to Zach isn't because she's feeling passion, it is because she is feeling humiliated. The movie also had to snip out a couple of seconds of Winger flexing her hips a bit too much during a bed scene. Still one of the steamiest bed scenes in film history. The most riveting moment of the movie is when Foley is going to kick Zach out of the program and Gere frantically and desperately screams "DON'T YOU DO THAT! I AIN'T GOT NOWHERE ELSE TO GO!" All of Zach's arrogance is drained out of him and he is just a desperate kid begging for the only chance he'll ever have. Powerful moment. In the end, Zach gains maturity. Would you want to fly into combat with Zach Mayo or with Tom Cruise's Maverick in "Top Gun"? Zach Mayo, hands down.

Though ribbed by some critics for being a crude update of the formula film romances of the 1940's, audiences still showed up in droves to see this film and turned it into one of the biggest grossers of 1982. While the film may certainly follow the general formulaic outlines of the genre, director Taylor Hackford and screenwriter Douglas Day Stewart dodge sentimentalization with a healthy dosage of grim reality. This is no longer the ultra-glamorized world of old Hollywood; AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN is a movie about love in the real world. By not sheltering it's lovers from the harsh nature of humanity, the film manages to have a significantly greater impact as it works toward a deservedly optimistic ending.

In a role turned down by both John Travolta and John Denver, Richard Gere lends a brooding intensity that electrifies what could have been a bland protagonist. Debra Winger, with her down-home sexiness at it's peak, turns in a fascinating portrayal of small town frustration, and Louis Gossett Jr nearly steals the picture in a harrowing, Oscar-winning performance. In fact, Gere's relationship with Gossett's Drill Sargent is just as involving as his love affair with Winger. The supporting cast is also well-cast, with David Keith, Robert Loggia, and Lisa Blount delivering standout performances.

I went to Navy OCS (for ship drivers, not aviators) a year after this movie came out. A lot of us considered it one of the best movies ever made. Despite the fact that there is some serious license taken with reality, the movie captures the intensity and high stakes of OCS, and how people who barely know each other become bonded so quickly; how the least likely candidates sometimes become the star performers; how some people are changed beyond recognition by the experience. There was never a lack of old hands like Sid's father, telling you you had it easy because of some difference in the rules he didn't enjoy 10 years earlier. DOR is translated by Foley as "drop on request". In 1983, the terminology was DE, which meant dis enroll. I always wondered what happened to the candidates in my class who DE'd. The ones who graduated I kept running into in the fleet, sometimes in places like the Philippines. The most unrealistic thing about the movie was the premise that local girls want to marry officer candidates. Not so in Pensacola or Newport RI, where OCS was in those days. The locals actually called us behind our backs "cockroaches" because we wore all black and had to run away to our barracks by 10 pm. The second most unrealistic thing was the foul language. That comes later, in the fleet, but not in OCS. No we did not have martial arts duels. All in all, however, the essence of the experience, if not the specifics, is found in the movie. One of our marching songs went "left right left right / you HAD a good job and you LEFT / you're RIGHT!" We really did have nowhere else to go. I say 10 stars. The VHS version gets only 8 because of changes to the soundtrack songs.

A movie that you can watch over and over again and find something new. There really is something for everyone and for those who follow classical screenplay protocols this is an absolute must. The timing of events and the pace of those events is absolutely perfect. Richard Gere is really extremely good and in fact as time goes on his role may actually turn out to be one of his best. He has such a fragile bravado in this tale of selfish loner turns good. Debra Winger and Louis Gossett are also outstanding. It is a movie that you either love or you hate and, over the years, the critics have very much wanted to play it down but there is no doubt in my mind that it is a classic tale well told with every aspect of "the cinema" used to its fullest extent