BLU-RAY REVIEW: TOP GUN

I watched this movie so many times as a kid I can't begin to look at it through fresh eyes.

 

It's hard to find anything new to say about it too but I like that as well as all the old stuff - the magic hour, the jet power, the gayness - you pinpointed it as maybe the epitome of the insane screen charisma of Tom Cruise. Even as he approaches 50 I still find him one of the most watchable stars on the planet but there in the San Diego heat of 1986 the dude was blazing.

 

And yet it wasn't to the point that he eclipsed the guys he was sharing that screen with. Edwards, Kilmer, Skerritt - even Rick Rossovich and young Meg Ryan - all hold their own just fine and it's a whole lot of fun to watch those all characters playing or sparring.

Yeah I saw this one too many times as a youngster. I watched it again after what seemed like 10 years went by and was amazed at how much of it works.

 

It is what it is. It doesn't pretend to be anything else. Its crazy that it holds up as well as it does.

I think Nick got to the heart of it when he said it was about the pairings. What we now mock as homoeroticism lurking behind a conventional romantic narrative, me and all my teenage friends saw as defining the adult version of the friendships and male relationships we had. It offered the promise that the simple pleasures of having pals as you hit your teen years would still matter, and be vital, as an adult. The fact that authority figures would continue to be capable of being transformed into allies if you worked hard and had were talented and were good at what you did.

Sure, even that sounds like a pederast's wet dream but I'm not exaggerating when I say that for years this film defined what a lot of boys I knew considered the aspiration of adult male friendship. Consider this: most of my friends would have looked at you as if you were silly if you said you wanted to pretend to be Indiana Jones or a Jedi. Offer them the up and down 'high five' Goose and Maverick give each other at the volleyball game and there would be an instant connection.

In a way, I think that explains its success and also its fundamental flaw. It was a film for teenage boys, offering a fantasy of platonic relationships between successful men, both peers and superiors/juniors. Rather than the more typical playground cockfight we would now recognise as being the norm for most male relationships in competitive fields.