Not a very manly thing to admit to I know, but An Officer And A Gentleman has been one of my favourite movies for a good many years. I first saw the movie back in 1983, and although I skip a few years in between viewings it’s a movie I watch again and again!

For me it’s the mix of genre’s; primarily the movie is a romantic movie, but at its heart it’s a movie about Navy trainees preparing to go out and fight for there country. This synergy of the two genre’s is what I believe is the winning success to this movie. It’s a movie that keeps both sexes perfectly happy, while the woman loves the love story, the men can go all macho on the action element.

Richard Gere plays the part of Zach Mayo, although he was by this time an established actor his part here spring boarded himself into the Hollywood A-List category. His performance here is totally convincing, he begins the movie full of himself, butch and full of hatred for a variety of things around him. As the movie progresses you see the change in his character take place before your very eyes. You go from disliking this character, to loving him. Interestingly the role very nearly went to John Travolta but he felt that the role would ruin his career.
For his co-actress and love interest for the movie is played by Debra Winger, at the time nobody really knew who she was. She was not the first person, on the producers mind when selecting the person for the role, a whole host of A-list actresses queued up for the part. While Winger portrayed the role very well, there was one thing blocking her way; Don Simpson the movies producer was annoyed because he did not find her “f**kable”. Somehow Winger was able to prove this was not the case and Winger got the role. Winger has a great convincing quality to her acting, to the viewer she looks and acts just like someone you meet on the street. This was a key part in her selection for the roll Paula. While all the other women in town are looking to marry an officer it’s not Paula’s key goal in life; she just wants to be happy and have a loving man by her side.
The most notable role of the movie comes from Lou Gossett Jnr, as the drill sergeant. Having been trained by a genuine drill sergeant for many weeks prior to filming Gossett pulled off the performance of a lifetime. He was fair but tough, with an element of compassion that’s rarely seen in similar movies. So impressed were the fans of the movie that Gossett found himself up for an Oscar and won the award in one of the best standing ovations in Oscar’s history.

• Commentary by Director Taylor Hackford – Quite nice as is all of Hackfords interviews. Hackford addresses the problems they had with certain actors/actresses for example Lisa Eilbacher when she pretended to be unfit when she was actually in the best shape. He explains that time after time they had to redo shoots because she kept forgetting she had to be bad.