Dir: Joseph Kosinski. Starring: Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Lewis Pullman, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer. 12A, 131 minutes.
Top Gun, released in 1986, might be the most effective and insidious military recruitment ad ever made. Bolstered by the shuddering synths of Harold Faltermeyer’s score and a lifetime’s supply of high fives, Tony Scott’s fighter pilot fever dream represented an amoral, apolitical ideal of navy life. The enemy was unnamed. The war was barely defined. Here, a true brotherhood could be built on nothing but brass balls and good vibes. And a man could sit in a cockpit and feel like he could climb past where Icarus fell. According to the actual US Navy, Top Gun resulted in a 500 per cent boost to their recruitment rates in the year after its release.
