Lt. Jordan O'Neil: [commenting on the special standard for her training] I mean really sir, why don't you just issue me a pink petticoat to wear around the base?
C.O. Salem: Did you just have a brain fart, Lieutenant?
Lt. Jordan O'Neil: Begging your pardon, sir?
C.O. Salem: Did you just waltz in here and bark at your commanding officer? Because if you did, I would call that a bona fide brain fart, and I resent it when people FART inside my office!
Lt. Jordan O'Neil: I think you've resented me from the start, sir.
C.O. Salem: What I resent, Lieutenant, is some politician using my base as a test tube for her grand social experiment. What I resent, is the sensitivity training that is now mandatory for all of my men. The ob-gyn I now have to keep on staff just to keep track of your personal pap smears. But most of all what I resent, is your perfume, however subtle, interfering with the scent of my fine three-dollar-and-seventy-nine-cent cigar, which I will put out this instant if the phallic nature of it happens to offend your GODDAMN FRAGILE SENSIBILITIES! Does it?
Lt. Jordan O'Neil: No, sir.
C.O. Salem: "No, sir" WHAT?
Lt. Jordan O'Neil: The shape doesn't bother me. Just the goddamn sweet stench.
Man, I have never seen a movie choke in the last half-hour the way GI JANE does. Remember the ball rolling between Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner's legs in the 1986 World Series? Remember the Buffalo Bill's four fruitless Super Bowl appearances? Remember Waterloo? All are famous examples of the Big Choke, but all pale in comparison to the utter failure of this picture to bring its story to an original and satisfying conclusion. Okay, so maybe I'm guilty of hyperbole. But I simply can recall no instance in recent memory in which director, screenwriter and star all conspired to create such a bankrupt conclusion to an otherwise competent, if unremarkable, production.
This collapse can even be pinned down to a single shot. Lt. Jordan O'Neil (Demi Moore), super-buff Navy Intel officer turned hard-core SEAL cadet, has found herself, along with her fellow trainees, on a real-life Special Ops mission on Libyan soil. There's some premise concerning weapons-grade plutonium falling into the wrong hands, but who really cares? It's the same sort of tacked-on, credibility-straining climax used in every military-training film from Top Gun to Stripes. Would real SEAL cadets actually be sent into live combat? No way. Still, I was willing to accept this premise all the way up until the point that Demi, her bald head gleaming in the desert sun, leapt out from behind a rock- in slow motion, no less- with her assault rifle blazing. It was a shot lifted straight out of any one of the RAMBO movies. The sight was so ludicrous that I laughed out loud. Whatever viable message the film might have had was lost forever. GI JANE is TOP GUN, set in a different branch of the service and with a pair of surgically-enhanced breasts where Tom Cruise's nose used to be. All that was missing was a Kenny Loggins song on the soundtrack.
It's really too bad, because until that fateful shot, GI JANE does a decent job setting up its premise and making a case for its heroine. Cantankerous Texas senator Lillian DeHaven (Anne Bancroft), presumably a Democrat, decides to court popularity by testing the Pentagon's proscription against women in combat roles. From a list of overachieving candidates she chooses O'Neil to serve as a test case: if she can cut Navy SEAL training, the most rigorous combat training on the planet, the Pentagon will be forced to alter its policy. DeHaven operates on the assumption, however, that no woman could actually pass the course. By setting up O'Neil to fail, she will walk away a hero to women voters without actually rocking the Navy's boat. The duplicitous cunning of this scheme would make any actual politician proud to be alive.
But O'Neil is no Shannon Faulkner. As embodied by Moore, she is a committed, iron-willed officer who sees the SEAL course as a path to real career advancement. She tells her lover and fellow Naval officer Royce (Jason Beghe) to back her or step aside. She demands equal treatment with her fellow trainees, and bristles at the sight of the step-box placed for her benefit on the obstacle course. When it becomes clear that she is receiving special treatment, she shaves her head and moves into the barracks with the men, who panic at the sight of her tampons. Hers is an impressive display of chutzpah, and you can't help but root for her.
The Navy refused to give their blessing to his film, so we can only take the filmmakers' word that SEAL training is as sadistic and thuggish as presented here. Recruits are deprived of sleep for days on end. They are forced to eat out of garbage cans. They must do push-ups in the freezing surf and spend hours holding heavy landing craft above their heads. When their drill instructors aren't humiliating them or beating the living hell out of them, they're firing live machine gun rounds over their heads. If SEAL training were even half this brutal in real life, there would be Congressional hearings on C-Span for the next twenty years. This little summer camp is presided over by the Command Master Chief (Viggo Mortensen), a weasely little sadist who feels disdain for O'Neil but nonetheless intrigued by her mettle. The script gives him a few quirks (reading DH Lawrence, for example) to distinguish him from the horde of cinematic drill instructors which preceded him, but he remains a stick-figure nonetheless. That the script finds it necessary to create ominous sexual tension between O'Neil and the Chief gives you an idea of the kind of wrong turns it takes.
The fact is we are in Fantasy Land for most of this movie, and the only thing that makes it watchable is, surprisingly enough, Moore herself. Her acting talent is modest, to put it mildly, and she has demonstrated a nearly flawless ability to choose bad projects. If there is a common thread to Moore's career, however, it is that all her projects, from her "Vanity Fair" covers to her Letterman appearances to the woeful STRIPTEASE, are built around a common object of worship: her own body. In this sense GI JANE is the ultimate Moore vehicle, for it exists solely to allow us the privilege of watching her buff up. The key to this picture lies in the shots of Moore doing one-armed push-ups and vertical sit-ups hanging from her bunk. We are to admire her physical perfection. Director Ridley Scott seems to understand this purpose and so wisely keeps the focus on the gal herself; her fellow recruits are an anonymous chorus of male admirers, there to be won over by her grit and determination. GI JANE is Moore's love letter to herself.
But it's a well-made love letter. Accepting it on this level, I actually enjoyed it- until Moore came out from behind that rock with gun blazing. Then I hung my head and wept for Ridley Scott, the man who gave us BLADE RUNNER, ALIEN, and the inspiring female characters of THELMA AND LOUISE. For Scott has now sunk to the level of his less-talented brother Tony, who gave us TOP GUN. He choked- he gave us ninety minutes of the most awe-inspiring narcissism ever to hit the big screen, and then tacked a clichéd action-movie climax on the end. I would have enjoyed GI JANE so much more if only, like its main character, it had maintained the courage of its convictions.
By : Rick Ferguson
Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
Rating: 0
Demi Moore plays a Lt. O'Neil, a talented Naval Intelligence officer whose career is thwarted by the male/female double standard: No advancement without operational experience (combat), and few openings in the field for women. Ann Bancroft plays a US Senator who is staging a re-election campaign. Chairing a defense oversight committee, she sees an opportunity make an issue of women in the military. Threatening to withhold an appointment of a Defense Secretary, she gets a carte blanche concession. Any woman who measures up can have any job. Testing that assurance, the senator opts to recruit a woman for the toughest duty of all: Navy Seal training. O'Neil is picked, as much for her looks as her resume.
Seal training was a poor choice. Only the best of the best need apply, but this is less like Top Gun, and more like the Bataan death march, interrupted by lessons in weapons and tactics. It is expected that 60% of the enrollees will drop out. The intent is to cull out the hardiest soldiers for the toughest insurgence and rescue operations. Only the Pete Rose/Lenny Dykstra types need apply. Many will need to stoke up their strongest machismo just to grit it out. Into this ordeal, Lt. O'Neil is thrown.
But O'Neil feels up to the challenge. She has the drive, and she is in exceptional physical shape. A big question is whether the brass will thwart her, and whether her fellow trainees will accept her. These issues make up the real story of the movie. Those in command are just as apprehensive about the dangerous political position this puts them in. With no precedents, they try their best to accommodate O'Neil, but separate quarters and different pass/fail requirements end up embarrassing her and alienating her from those she needs to bond with. That buzz-cut you see in the promos is her idea, and when she insists on bunking with boys, the stakes go up.
Much of O'Neil's struggle is defined by her relation with the head instructor, Master Chief Urgayle (Viggo Mortensen in a good, complex role). Urgayle is an expert in this rarefied survival environment, and he is a fair man in a program where nothing is fair. He truly feels that the presence of a woman in combat makes the rest of the soldiers more vulnerable. When he puts O'Neil through her toughest test, he is also brought to his limits. The best scenes in this movie include O'Neil and Urgayle.
Director Ridley Scott remains one of my favorites. This time, he didn't get much chance to sneak in his trademark art direction, but he delivers O'Neil's story well. Demi Moore has had her ups and downs in this business, the downs coming when she misjudges the true nature of her appeal. It looks as if she got this one right. O'Neil's drive and feistiness mirrors Moore's willingness to throw herself into one unsafe role after another. The audience may find themselves waffling between rooting for character O'Neil and actress Moore. It's always nice to see Ann Bancroft in a movie. She doesn't work enough to suit me, so I cherish little cameos like the one she did in Love Potion No. 9. When G.I. Jane was over, I had found a new actor to follow. Viggo Mortensen was a name I had often noticed when the credits listed all the background supporting roles, but this is the first time I got to see him featured. I am looking forward to the next time.
