David Farnor | On 29, May 2022

Director: Tony Scott
Cast: Tom Cruise, Tim Robbins, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Tom Skerritt
Certificate: 15

“You don’t have time to think up there. If you think, you’re dead.” Those are the words of Maverick (Tom Cruise) in Top Gun, as he reinforces the film’s central themes of risk, bravery, men, flying and brave men who fly into risk with the manly bravery of brave men. It’s a film rich with macho and pro-military subtext, but simultaneously a film that soars right over that subtext without looking down – because why bother when you don’t have time to think?

Maverick, we swiftly learn, is a guy who lives up to his name. A cocky, roguish sort, he fancies himself a lone wolf of the sky. So when he gets the chance to join Top Gun – the US Navy’s elite flight school for the best of the best of the best – he jumps aboard, along with his co-pilot, Goose (Anthony Edwards). Before they’ve even started their training, Maverick has locked sights on Charlie (Kelly McGillis), who turns out to be an instructor at Top Gun, and they begin a relationship that they try to keep secret.

So far, so Hollywood, but it quickly becomes apparent that the film isn’t really interested in the bond between Maverick and Charlie, with McGillis given short shrift in a thankless role. Instead, Top Gun is mostly concerned with the pilots doing all the piloting. The rivalry between Iceman (Val Kilmer) and Maverick is the real relationship at the heart of the film, with Iceman vocally sceptical about having someone as self-centred as Maverick as his wingman. The film’s main passion? The “lost art of aerial combat”.

The result is an oddly shallow slice of spectacle, with the emphasis on testosterone and adrenaline and not even much time given to specifying the enemies that appear for the climactic final act. The loss and complicated dynamics that simmer underneath the surface are all rooted in male relationships across cockpits and generations, with the ensemble all united in their shared drive to succeed, win and be the best. It’s as bombastic, patriotic and American as cinema gets – and set the template for modern Hollywood blockbusters that work closely with the US military to benefit from genuine equipment, locations and other access to help keep down their budgets. From Transformers to Black Hawk Down, it’s a partnership that benefits the military too, as it helps make combat look cool and boost general morale – after Top Gun’s release, recruitment numbers for the Navy got a big boost.

Despite being such an unabashedly pro-America romp, or perhaps partly because of it, the film and its legacy has endured for decades. It was a box office smash hit in 1986, outperforming films such as Crocodile Dundee, Aliens, Ferris Buller’s Day Off, Back to the Future and the ideologically opposed Platoon, and turning songs Take My Breath Away and Danger Zone into mainstay favourites. Why, when it’s such a case of style over substance? Because the style is just so stylish. Director Tony Scott, who got the gig after a Saab advert that pit the car’s latest model against a fighter jet, was a natural fit, capable of conjuring up stunning set pieces, from dogfights to upside-down stunts. It’s as glossy as the magazine article that first inspired the script, right down to the sequence in which Cruise rides a motorbike alongside a runway, rejoicing when a plane takes off. Cruise is as charismatic as you’d expect in the lead role, his intensity matched by Kilmer’s frosty, brooding presence, but Scott knows that the action is the star of the show here – and he makes sure things move at a fast enough pace that such concerns as thinking and subtext are soon left dwindling to a dot in the rear-view mirror.

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