An officer and a gentleman ( 1982 ) 
Richard Gere plays aviation officer candidate Zack Mayo . He has not had a great childhood . His mom overdosed with sleeping pills in his childhood thus committing suicide and leaving him in the responsibility of his whoring father , who was in the navy . Zack grew up among his father's wh**es in various US naval bases in different countries . So Zack is a rebel .
But a burning ambition to fly navy jets brings him to a training base inspite of his father's incredulousness , where he is under the training of Sergeant Emil Foley ( Louis Gossett Jr ) . Foley is a tough sergeant and training under him is exceptionally harsh . Foley is forever shouting at his trainees and taunting them and forces them to undergo gruelling exercises . He punishes very harshly for the slightest misdemeanour .
Zack being a rebel , comes to loggerheads with Foley on numerous occasions . Zack sells buckles as a side business and is rigorously punished by Foley for doing so . In fact Foley pushes him to the breaking point , until Zack is forced to admit to him that he has nowhere else to go except the navy . But that is not the last time the two come to loggerheads and things have to be settled between them in a karate bout in the end .
Zack has other team mates with him , and his best friend is Sid Worley ( David Keith ) . The two get into romantic relationships with Paula Pokrifki ( Debra Winger ) and Lynette Pomeroy ( Lisa Blount ) respectively . This inspite of Sergeant Foley having warned them about local girls who might trap them into marriage by becoming pregnant , as they have dreams of marrying naval aviators to escape the dreary life of the town . The girls come from working class families and work in a factory there . The local boys are jealous about the navy boys getting the best girls and then dumping them and Zack and Sid get into a fight with the locals in which Zack's karate skills come mighty handy to defend themselves .
Paula develops real feelings of love for Zack , who promises nothing to her at all . It is exactly this kind of attitude that irks Lynette , who is determined to trap Sid into marriage . But she goes one step ahead than other girls in this ; she fakes pregnancy which is not there . On the other hand Paula invites Zack to her house to meet her family , where Zack sees her father giving him strange looks . Outside the house Paula tells Zack that he is not her real father , who was exactly an aviation officer candidate like Zack . But he dumped her mother after fathering Paula , and she had to marry the man giving Zack strange looks because he was wondering if Zack would do the same to Paula that her real father had done to her mother...
Meanwhile we are shown the rough basic training that aviation officer candidates get before they can qualify for further training to fly jets . It consists of miles and miles of running singing songs in order to make one tough physically . It also consists of climbing obstacles that one female candidate finds really difficult until Zack eggs her on to climb . Also it consists of simulating an aircraft crashing in water after being hit and how to survive the dive . Karate training is given by Sergeant Foley ( who is a tall and extremely fit black man ) himself to the candidates to survive in physical combat with the enemy . Also it consists of surviving in low oxygen atmosphere .
It is in the last part that Sid cannot handle the pressure , as he is under mental tension due to Lynette's faked pregnancy . He decides to take a D. O. R.---that is drop on request ; basically decides to quit the training . This inspite of being the best candidate so far . But when he tells this to Lynette and asks her to marry him , she tells him that she is not pregnant and refuses to marry him because he is no longer going to be a naval aviator . With both his career and his woman gone , Sid is shattered and commits suicide . Zack and Paula search the town for him until they find Sid having hanged himself in a motel room .
Zack is angry with Sergeant Foley for not having stopped Sid from taking a D. O . R. and the two head for a fight in the karate training arena . But inspite of the bitterness Foley grudgingly acknowledges that Zack was a special candidate when the time for graduation comes .
When graduation happens other candidates meet and embrace their near and dear ones , who have come to cheer them . But Zack is left alone with no one to cheer him , as his unworthy father has not come to salute his son who has become an officer . There is one solution to this loneliness and that is to be with Paula , because she truly loves Zack . And committing himself to the lady who really loves him will make Zack a real gentleman . An officer and a gentleman...
The climax in which Zack arrives in the factory to lift Paula in his arms to the cheers of those working there including Paula's mother ( and to Lynette's chagrin ) is about the most uplifting and romantic climax you would ever see in a movie . And it lifts the movie to a class that is way above other movies of the same category .
Background music and photography is good and acting by everyone is good too . The movie show people from working class backgrounds and their dreams and ambitions . Some people are honest like Paula and others like Lynette are dishonest . Even the candidates for naval aviation are from working class backgrounds , including Zack whose father was just a petty officer in the navy . Not the elite of America are these people...but the movie was liked by even the elite critics , who ranked it the best movie of 1982 . And I liked it too .
Verdict---Good .
Four out of five stars .
Bade Achche Lagte Hain Naya Season
Cricket
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