Category: David Caruso

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN

By Marc S. Sanders

You ever feel proud of a character in a movie?  Like you walk out, and you say to yourself, “Well done, Rocky!  You did it!!!”  That’s how I feel about Zack Mayo, the Navy enlisted candidate who has to survive his first 13 weeks of basic training on his way to eventually obtaining his dream of flying jets.  Just as important though, Zack has to mature as a responsible young man with a commitment to caring at least as much for others as they already care for him.  Richard Gere plays the guy who must become both An Officer And A Gentleman.

Director Taylor Hackford goes deep into the bottom of the well to show what makes Zack such a loner.  His Navy enlisted father (Robert Loggia) abandoned him and his mother, and only reenters Zack’s boyhood life once his mother commits suicide. Zack spends time growing up on the Philippine Islands Naval base where he gets bullied while remaining unloved.

Years later, after college graduation, not knowing of any other direction to take with his adult life, he opts to go down the same path of his bum of a father and join the Navy where he’ll perform basic training when he arrives at a coastal Seattle base. The enlisted men do not have a good historical reputation in this area.  Many are known for bed hopping with the local factory girls, and then they relocate to where they are going towards next in their servitude, leaving the girlfriends behind and forgotten.  Zack’s father was one of these guys. The ladies in the area also have a stained legacy.  Many of them will deliberately get pregnant or even lie about missing their period to keep these enlisted men from leaving them.

Sergeant Foley (Louis Gossett Jr, in his unforgettable Oscar winning role) oversees Mayo and his class, specifically warning all of them that these trends occur over and over again.  When he’s not cautioning them, Foley attacks the character traits that weigh Mayo and the others down.  If they had a rough childhood or checkered background, Foley will not hold back.  He has to prepare these men and women for a possible war or a position of captivity behind enemy lines.  If these young folks can endure Sgt Foley’s cruel mind games and unforgiving, hard-hearted nature, then they are more prepared for any worst-case scenario that can come while performing military service.  

Mayo is a leading candidate in his class.  He has the potential to break the record on the brutal obstacle course, and he’s secretly resourceful with selling polished boots and belt buckles to his classmates ahead of bunk inspection.  Not bad.  However, he’s not mature and he doesn’t even realize it.  The first time he completes the obstacle course he sits over on the side, proud of himself, rather than joining his teammates in cheering each other on to finish the job.

Love is also not something Mayo is experienced with. He meets Paula (Debra Winger in a superb Oscar nominated performance) who is ready to love Zack but he’s not ready to open up to her.  Perhaps he never wants to love or commit to anyone to save himself from loss or further abandonment because it’s all he’s ever known.  An Officer And A Gentleman is very good at subtly covering what makes a loner a loner.  

Contrary to Zack’s background is the best friend he makes, Sid Worley, a fellow classmate (David Keith).  Sid is a happy go lucky fellow, but eventually the film shares what motivated him to enlist and how his relationship with a local girl pans out. Perhaps there’s some sense to what Foley has been warning these people about.  

An Officer And A Gentleman is sad at some points and very uplifting as well.  Sometimes it’s hard to watch the encounters that Zack and company must endure during these first thirteen weeks of a committed six-year servitude to the Navy.  The glamour of flying jets can only arrive once you shed away the person you once were by developing maturity, respect, resilience and honor.  

I love the way Taylor Hackford’s film tests Zack.  He’s tested by Paula, by Sergeant Foley and even by his own father.  Can he let go of the drunken whore parties arranged by his dad? Raised by a guy who might have worn the officer rankings and uniform, but now beds the women he picks up in bars only to finish it off with a drunken vomit session in the morning.  

Foley puts Zach to his mental and physical limits after he catches him in violation.  The sergeant then insists on the kid’s DOR (“drop on request”).  It’s up to Zack if he wants to take this seriously or simply quit and remain a loser like his father.

Then there is Zack’s commitment to Paula.  Can he trust Paula will not trick him or let him down, again like his father, then his mother, and followed by his father all over again?  

Richard Gere is sensational at balancing two stories at once.  This remains the best role of his career.  It’s a dynamic, multi layered performance.  First, the physicality he devoted to the role is impressive.  That is Gere doing the obstacle course and cockpit test crash dives in the swimming pool.  Gere is the one doing endless pushups in the mud and running in place with a rifle above his head while Gossett’s character torments him with his abusive yelling and a dribbling water hose.  Gere is also the one riding Mayo’s motorcycle.  The actor is completely absorbed in this divided character.  Arguably, he should have been considered for an Oscar nomination.  

Zack Mayo is not always likable.  The purpose of the film is to discover what is to admire about the conflicted loner who never had anyone to care for him or anyone for him to lend sincerity towards.  If joining the Navy can pull this guy towards a meaningful life that can be purely earned and not cheated or circumvented, then it’s possible to feel proud of what this man becomes.  

An Officer And A Gentleman is now over forty years old. So, it might feel dated. Yet, the traits that make a man and a woman good, honorable, and loving people has never lost their immense value.  If you have never seen this movie, it’s time you did, and if you have seen it, it is due for a rewatch.  

The last line of the picture, depicted in one of the greatest endings ever to close out a film, is “Way to go Paula!”  Allow me to also say “Way to go Zack!”

FIRST BLOOD

By Marc S. Sanders

1982 was a significant year in Sylvester Stallone’s career.  He helped popularize a rock anthem from Survivor (Eye Of The Tiger) and he ushered in the pop icon figure with the mohawk and gold chains, known as Mr. T, when the third chapter of his Philadelphia sad sack boxer, Rocky,  became a huge hit at the box office.  More importantly, however, he initiated another, bloodier, franchise character.  

Vietnam Veteran John Rambo entered a small northwestern town to catch up with an old war buddy and grab a bite to eat in First Blood, based on a bestselling novel by David Morrell.  The film, with a screenplay co-written by Stallone, contains a simple plot.  The well-liked Sheriff Teasle (Brian Dennehy) of this community takes notice of Rambo, the drifter with an American flag patched on his army coat, and immediately does not take a liking to him or his appearance.  Teasle attempts to peacefully escort the stranger beyond the city limits.  As soon as he drops Rambo off on the other side of the bridge, the former Green Beret turns around and starts to walk back into town.  A conflict is now set off that will carry the rest of the picture.

After Teasle arrests Rambo, an abusive jail search and frisk awakens the post traumatic stress that the veteran appears to be haunted by from his experiences when he was held captive by the Viet Cong.  A thrilling action sequence is welcomed by Rambo’s escape into the wintery cold mountains.  Now a personal war pitting the tormented man against Teasle’s local law enforcement has been waged.  Perhaps the only way this will end peacefully is if Rambo’s former commander, Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna), can reign the soldier in before there’s loss of life or any further injury.

The irony of First Blood, Rambo’s first cinematic adventure, is that there is only one fatality in the whole picture.  Rambo is not necessarily a cold blooded killer.  Just don’t push him.  Otherwise, the picture hinges quite a bit on the inventive booby traps that he sets up with only what accompanies his multipurpose six-inch bayonet knife and what can be uncovered within the dense woods.  The traps are quite daring and believable, and as an action picture, it makes for good entertainment.

First Blood may attempt to demonstrate the residual effects of returning home from a tortuous war, but I do not think it sends the best message.  I could never truly understand Teasle’s  immediate abhorrence for Rambo.  This is just a guy who’s walking on by.  Where does the alarm stem from in the Sheriff’s mind?  Maybe a reader can give me some insight that I have failed to recognize after repeated viewings of the film.  

The best part of First Blood is the ending which likely offers one of the best acting scenes in Sylvester Stallone’s enormously long career.  As the adventure is wrapping up, a well written and heartbreaking monologue is delivered that unleashes the terrible trauma the Veteran carries.  Stallone gets to such a manic state of tears and anxiety that it seems so natural.  His voice gets convincingly hoarse.  His face contorts into believable anguish.  At times it is hard to comprehend what he’s describing to Colonel Trautman, but it’s easy to see the distress the character has been living with.  It’s also a perfect summation of the film.  

In this first film, before the subsequent sequels focusing on sensationalized violence, it is apparent how John Rambo contains his heartache and resorts to release what he’s coping with by fighting back against a higher power and refusing to surrender.   The closing monologue perfectly demonstrates that.  It’s as if this man has been holding his breath under water and now, once all the ammunition is expended and the town is in flames, he can finally release what’s been buried in his gut, in his subconscious, for so long.  

1982 was an appropriate time to release First Blood.  It had been ten years since the United States pulled out of a long, losing war in Vietnam.  During the Reagan years, it is fair to argue that life had become quaint and peaceful in this country.  There were remnants of a Cold War still brewing, but there was not a violently long conflict any longer to report.  Pop culture and materialism were being embraced.  Cost of living was working well for the middle class.  Sadly though, there were plenty of people who served who could not put behind the mental scars they took home with them.  Many of these men and women remain forgotten.  Some never returned and some are still unaccounted for.  David Morrell’s story attempted to bring attention to these oversights.  Though the ending to the film adaptation is far different than Morrell’s book, the message is consistent.  

I do not think First Blood is a more effective narrative than The Deer Hunter or Oliver Stone’s well received Vietnam pictures to come out later in the decade.  After all, this is by and large an action adventure.  However, due to the popularity that Stallone carried with the Rambo character, it may have garnered attention for those that never should have been neglected.