An Officer and a Gentleman

Pace all those swooning fans of gorgeous Gere, but Hackford's hymn to rampant individualism in Reagan's America is an exploitative no-no. While the immaculately garbed and coiffed hero goes through the paces of training under a sadistic black (natch) sergeant to be a US Navy pilot (we all find it admirable to want to drop bombs and kill, don't we?), he discovers that self is the sole person worth bothering about, and that women are really only after men for their status and money. Macho, materialistic, and pro-militarist, it's an objectionable little number made all the more insidious by the way Hackford pulls the strings and turns it into a heart-chilling weepie.