Let me preface this with a statement about myself, for me, it's really difficult to like a romantic movie because I cant enjoy it unless it feels real to me, and making fake love seem real isn't easy. However the reason the love in this movie doesn't feel real to me isn't because the acting is bad or because there's just no chemistry between the two main lovers, Richard Gere and Debra Winger, the issue is that this entire movie is just a gigantic pizza which is 80% cheesiness and 20% movie.
The movie only ever manages to have one genuinely good part, the climax, when David Keith offs himself in a motel room with a belt in the shower, something truly sad and something that made me feel a connection to his character and disdain for his ex-lover who had pushed him off the edge. Shortly after however it seems like the movie just forgets this whole entire incident with little collateral damage beyond Gere mouthing off to the gunnery sergeant and having a grudge match that leads to (not even joking) Gere getting kicked in the balls and lying down in the fetal position after him and Gossett exchange a few pseudo karate kicks.
Its a shame too, mostly because Gere's character could have been much more interesting, what with his background being raised by his alcoholic father in the Philippines and ports around the world, but the movie seems all to eager to move past that and just get to the part where he's a nice guy and marries the girl. Really he's only ever a jerk in the beginning and his jerkiness is only ever mildly apparent. yet they still try to make him seem like some disturbed rebel when the only edgy stuff he does is karate, riding motorcycles, not talking about feelings, and having a stash of boots and belt buckles he fenced off to his bunk mates, a kind of ridiculous plot point which leads to him and the sergeant having beef, but what was his purpose in doing it anyways? did he need money? did he just want to be edgy? did the screenwriter just want him to be edgy?
The worst part is the end, if this were a cheese pizza the last slice would literally just be a melted piece of a cheese wheel, of course he commits to Winger and goes to her upon his graduation and lifts her up in the air joyously in love a mere 20 or so minutes after his closest friends suicide, and the credits roll leaving me, the audience, wondering where the last two hours of my life went with nothing to show for it but the memory of a crappy cheese pizza of a movie without a single pepperoni or topping in sight.
smh 4/10
The movie only ever manages to have one genuinely good part, the climax, when David Keith offs himself in a motel room with a belt in the shower, something truly sad and something that made me feel a connection to his character and disdain for his ex-lover who had pushed him off the edge. Shortly after however it seems like the movie just forgets this whole entire incident with little collateral damage beyond Gere mouthing off to the gunnery sergeant and having a grudge match that leads to (not even joking) Gere getting kicked in the balls and lying down in the fetal position after him and Gossett exchange a few pseudo karate kicks.
Its a shame too, mostly because Gere's character could have been much more interesting, what with his background being raised by his alcoholic father in the Philippines and ports around the world, but the movie seems all to eager to move past that and just get to the part where he's a nice guy and marries the girl. Really he's only ever a jerk in the beginning and his jerkiness is only ever mildly apparent. yet they still try to make him seem like some disturbed rebel when the only edgy stuff he does is karate, riding motorcycles, not talking about feelings, and having a stash of boots and belt buckles he fenced off to his bunk mates, a kind of ridiculous plot point which leads to him and the sergeant having beef, but what was his purpose in doing it anyways? did he need money? did he just want to be edgy? did the screenwriter just want him to be edgy?
The worst part is the end, if this were a cheese pizza the last slice would literally just be a melted piece of a cheese wheel, of course he commits to Winger and goes to her upon his graduation and lifts her up in the air joyously in love a mere 20 or so minutes after his closest friends suicide, and the credits roll leaving me, the audience, wondering where the last two hours of my life went with nothing to show for it but the memory of a crappy cheese pizza of a movie without a single pepperoni or topping in sight.
smh 4/10