‘This gives me a hard-on”; “Don’t tease me”; “I want some BUTTS!” The comedy takes on sexual identity in Top Gun have become so widespread after Quentin Tarantino’s monologue on the subject that it would be revisionist now to claim that this film was 100% heterosexual. But maybe the joke arose from cinephiles’ civilian naivety about what military life and language have always been like in reality.
In the glory days of the Reagan administration, producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer optioned a magazine article about the US Navy Fighter Weapons School in San Diego, California; this trained an elite corps of pilots in dogfight confrontations with the enemy, with the sword-of-honour first prize being nicknamed “Top Gun”. Tony Scott was appointed to direct and 23-year-old Tom Cruise broke through into the A-list as Lt Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a brilliant pilot whose dad flew in ’Nam and who infuriates yet entrances the uptight high-ups with his instinctive, courageous, rule-shattering brilliance. One cigar-smoking commanding officer almost does nothing in the film but bark “God-DAMMIT, Maverick!” as a junior officer reports Maverick’s latest piece of aerial cheek.
Maverick is chosen for the “Top Gun” course in San Diego, where he confronts his rival and frenemy, Tom “Ice Man” Kazansky, played by Val Kilmer; they are often to be found slinking around the locker room with nothing but snowy-white towels around their waists as if in some impossibly macho spa. Maverick falls in love with a civilian instructor with a PhD in astrophysics, who appears to have her own call sign nickname; this is Charlotte “Charlie” Blackwood, played with almost Veronica Lake sultriness by Kelly McGillis. (McGillis was very ungallantly denied a cameo in the recent sequel: Top Gun: Maverick, an oversight which we hope will be rectified in Top Gun 3). Maverick’s sweet, goofy side is revealed in his friendship with co-pilot Lt Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards), a pilot metaphorically wearing the Star Trek red vest; Goose’s sacrificial destiny is to bring about Maverick’s ascent to maturity and his wife, Carole, is played by Meg Ryan, whose appearance is almost lost in the testosterone.
It’s all very silly, though it’s impossible not to feel some affection for this film: Cruise’s pure, strenuous earnestness, the disconcerting laser focus of his stare, and the video-game combat sequences with the MiGs – the words “Soviet” or “Russian” aren’t mentioned. Some moments have dated a bit: Maverick cheerfully chewing gum in front of his commanding officer; Maverick following Charlie into the ladies’ room to hit on her – and, of course, there’s no beta-male woke nonsense about wearing a helmet to ride a motorbike. Perhaps the most purely bizarre scene is the beach volleyball contest against Ice Man and Slider (Rick Rossovich) in which Maverick and Goose do that double high-five/low-five routine every time they win a point. Those were smacks heard around the world.
• Top Gun is in UK and Irish cinemas now.
