(Against All Odds, Bound By Honour, The Devil's Advocate, Dolores Claiborne, Everybody's All-American, An Officer and a Gentleman, Proof of Life, White Nights)
Producer:
Martin Elfand
Screenplay:
Douglas Day Stewart
Music:
Jack Nitzsche
Cast:
Zack Mayo: Richard Gere
Paula Pokrifki: Debra Winger
Sid Worley: David Keith
Byron Mayo: Robert Loggia
Lynette Pomeroy: Lisa Blount
Casey Seeger: Lisa Eilbacher
Sgt. Emil Foley: Louis Gossett Jr.
An Officer and a Gentleman
is what new Navy Pilot recruit Zack Mayo (Richard Gere) appears to
be once he signs up and becomes the object of young girls' desires, like many
of the rest of his colleagues, as they spend their 13 weeks basic training
working like a dog from Monday to Friday, then letting rip at the weekend -
their "liberty time".
They're warned of the local girls who will do anything to marry a pilot, but
true love furrows its path and finds its way and so begins the feisty
relationship between Mayo and factory worker Paula Pokrifki (Debra Winger).
It's at this point where I'd say that I won't spoil what happens, but everyone
knows - even people like me who are just watching this movie for the first time,
as I refused to watch it on TV where it is always censored.
The other running storyline is that between joker-of-the-pack Mayo and the
hard-as-nails drill instructor Sgt. Emil Foley (Louis Gossett Jr.)
who puts in a fine performance - and one for which he won an Oscar - but nothing
still beats R. Lee Ermey's Gunnery Sgt. Hartman in Full Metal
Jacket. Foley keeps insinuating to Mayo that he must quit, but Mayo aims
to prove not only his drill sergeant wrong, but also his father, played by
Robert Loggia, whom he feels he never matched up to.
The rest of the cast includes Sid Worley (David Keith), who becomes
Zack's best friend, Sid's beau when the four are double-dating, Lynette
(Lisa Blount) and the only female amongst the recruits, Casey Seeger
(Lisa Eilbacher).
Paramount have found a fine 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, which
does have some print flecks at times, but it's impressive for a 20-year-old
film.
The average bitrate is a high and steady 7.20Mb/s.
No remastered soundtrack to be found though as it's the original mono
version which is clear for dialogue but doesn't particularly stand out.
Chapters are few and far between with just 15 and subtitles for dialogue come
in the same number of languages: English (and hard of hearing),
Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Icelandic,
Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Swedish and Turkish.
The extras are a 2½-minute Trailer and a feature-length
Director's Commentary, which also has subtitles available in English
and German. The menus are static and silent.
As I hinted at earlier, the picture looks very good for the age of the film,
but also given the age it's time that Paramount introduced a budget range
for films like this, at around the £13-15 price bracket.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
