Second Hand Movies Done Dirt Cheap: Top Gun (1986, Dir. Tony Scott, 1h 45)

How does one talk about Top Gun? Few films have wormed themselves into the cultural psyche, nor been as influential on the cinematic language of blockbuster films, nor been as burdened with readings of the film as everything from open propaganda for the USAF to, in the words of Quentin Tarantino in his self-indulgent cameo in the otherwise forgotten Sleep With Me "a man's struggle with his own homosexuality". Yet, at its heart, Top Gun is, in simple terms, 80s America in a single document, an MTV fast-cut music video of a film where music, action, and aesthetic overtake and negate plot, where America holds up a mirror to itself via the story of a pilot trying to make it in the elite of elites, thus launching the careers of Tom Cruise and the late Tony Scott, and likes what it sees.


 Top Gun begins with what I can only describe as peak 80s. Dry drum machine, synth piano and bass. White on black credits. Slow motion of planes taking off as the credits roll. Scott's filming style has doubtlessly influenced hundreds of directors, and everything from Transformers to The Fast and the Furious owes a debt to this lingering, loving, music-video inflected visual sensibility, as planes take off into a seemingly perpetual dawn/dusk. Cruise's introduction is no exception, shot in the same style as the plane he pilots. And then Kenny Loggins launches straight into Danger Zone and the comparison to music videos becomes undeniable. What follows is a mish-mash of lingering plane porn, enjoyably cheesy one liners and somewhat forced romance, packaged together in a product that matches the tone of the opening scene perfectly.

At the heart of Top Gun is Tom Cruise's Maverick. Maverick has a real name, but real names don't really matter in this film. In fact, aside from Cruise and his co-pilot, Goose (Anthony Edwards), who is, in essence a likable foil and a family man, compared to the wild and free Maverick, most characters are boiled down to their callsign, and indeed what their callsign represents-in simple cinematic language, Scott not only makes these characters easy to identify, but places their key character trait in full view in every shot.

Maverick is, appropriately, a maverick, something the film's pitch perfect opening scene displays in a nigh-perfect sequence of air-to-air combat in which Maverick not only displays his unpredictability and danger to both enemy and fellow pilot,exemplifed by Maverick merrily flipping his plane upside down and middle-fingering the Russian pilot but also his determination and selflessness in helping a stricken pilot land.Following his daring rescue of the stricken pilot, who promptly quits the Air Force, citing his family, Maverick and Goose take his place to join the reknowed Top Gun training academy, beginning a budding romance with Charlie Blackwood, a civilian expert and trainer, who, despite herself, finds herself falling for the hotshot pilot.

Here, he meets fellow pilots Iceman and the rest of the group of pilots. Iceman, (Val Kilmer), Maverick's main rival, and to the surprise of no-one, his eventual wingman, is exactly what his helmet says, a cold and clinical figure-but aside from his competitive edge, we know nothing about Iceman, learn nothing about his motivations-Iceman is a cypher, a dragon for Maverick to defeat, and this is perfectly encapsulated in the volleyball scene, which not only shows the rivalry between Iceman and Maverick, but also the degree to which Maverick is torn between his romance with Charlie and his friendship with Goose.

Soon, through a number of superbly taut battles, the two of them are in competition, both in and out of their planes, with Iceman critical of Maverick's unpredictability and selfishness in not supporting his wingman., with this eventually leading to tragedy with the death of Goose, which Maverick struggles to return to the air till the end of the film, where he must come to terms with not only his ability as a pilot, but also the death of Goose, eventually winning over not only Iceman but the general public, and after his graduation, decides to join Top Gun as a trainer, reuniting with Charlie..

What is clear about Top Gun is, at essence, it is a triumph of style over substance. Everything about the way the film feels, looks, the soundtrack, and the cutting makes this film nigh iconic-from the nigh constant sunrises or sunsets bathing the film in purple-orange tones, the use of slowmotion on the ground, but also the use of nosecam and use of extreme closeups in the cockpit. I obviously don't need to talk about the film's many iconic lines, and its soundtrack, many of both having become shorthand for the 80s at their 80s-ist. Character, for the most part, takes a back-seat to the rest of the film, even in the case of Maverick-identities and character motivations are stamped on helmets, most of the characters are interchangable, and only the rivalry between Iceman and Maverick and the friendship between Maverick and Goose are particularly fleshed out.

One can also argue that Top Gun is, undoubtedly a film with a decidedly masculine approach-there are two named female characters, one of whom, Goose's wife, barely makes an appearance, whilst Charlie is a largely passive female character, despite her initial agency at the beginning of the film. Yet, to follow Tarantino's approach is rather unfair to the film-it is less a film about male homosexuality, or indeed about male sexuality, but about masculinity, about dealing with male grief, both in the loss of Goose, but also in the loss of Maverick's father, male confidence and male relations, such that the film develops its male characters.

But undoubtedly, Top Gun is a film about American power. From the first frame of american jets, to the last, one cannot deny that famous suggestion that the film acted as a recruitment tool for the Navy-it, with its MTV-lite camera style, thumping rock soundtrack and its ultracool protagonists, against faceless Russians. Yet, it is perhaps more than this. Top Gun, arguably, is a document of its time, and of America at this point-the confident, bullish, Reagan-era USA, in all its cheesy, self-unaware, gung-ho glory.

Is Top Gun a perfect film? No, far from it-at best, it's a forerunner of every over-the-top summer blockbuster, where everything is dialled up to eleven, and all subtlety is thrown to the wind, at worse a shamelessly misogynistic, painfully ridiculous glorification of violence. Yet, its influence is undeniable, and for better or worse, it is a perfect encapsulation of a period of time captured on celluloid.

Rating: Recommended