Word: gentlemanly
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...OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN Directed by Taylor Hackford Screenplay by Douglas Day Stewart...
...obvious and unoriginal as that, An Officer and a Gentleman still works. The tension and yearnings pent up inside of aspiring Navy pilot Zack Mayo (Richard Gere) are vivid and believable. You may think you're too sophisticated for an underdog-gets-crewcut-and-makes-good saga, but wait until Mayo is face down in the mud, "doin' 50" for that bastard Sergeant Foley. You'll suddenly find you own tightly clenched fist pounding the arm rest with every rep. "Yes SIR! I'd LIKE to do some more push...
Another key aspect of mensch-hood is a certain degree of ambition: it's not enough merely to be a good guy. This is where An Officer and a Gentleman raises some legitimate ambiguities about the pursuit of military glory. Unfortunately, the film's creators do not take the time to explore them thoroughly...
These shorcomings aside. Hackford's rendition of Douglas Day Stewart's story is tasteful and touching. Zack Mayo never would have thought he'd make it into a cockpit neither would his father nor Foley. But he does, and An Officer and a Gentleman will leave you satisfied and humming quietly to yourself...
...philosophy of fishing in a style that Izaak Walton might envy, and his descriptions of dartboard arcana and Welsh superstitions belong on the shelf alongside Dickens. Another, smaller book could be made of his observations: "The stomach is really the basis of nationalism." "The infallible test for a gentleman is to drop in on him unfed, and see what he does about it." "Dogs, like very small children, are quite mad." Only one aperçu seems false...