1986 Top Gun

Top Gun was the highest grossing movie of 1986. It is also probably the most 80's movie you are going to get.

Check it out:

Killer soundtrack - Yep.
Number One song - Yep.
Rising Star - Yep.
Brooding Images - Yep.
Style and sass - Yep.
Men parading beach bodies playing volleyball - Yep.
Daring mission - Yep.
Tragic middle of story - Yep.
Father MIA - Yep.

Place all these elements together and you have the winning 80's formula for story.

The film was inspired by a newspaper story titled 'Top Guns', telling the life stories of navy pilots. Hollywood came calling and a script was written by Jim Cash and Jack Epps Jr. Tony Scott, the director, was primarily known as being the brother of Ridley and a director of commercials; this owes much to the style of the movie, shot with different colour lenses and acute angles, there is lots of slo-mo and early morning drills, adding to an atmosphere designed by all accounts to appease the US Navy, who allowed the crew access. Applications to join shot up after the film was released.

Tom Cruise at the time was a little known actor who had found small success with Risky Business. Top Gun propelled him to stardom and made him the most famous actor in the world, a position he arguably still occupies some 30 years later. The hit song to the film, Take My Breath Away, by Berlin was at the top of the charts worldwide for weeks; sadly Berlin did not repeat that success.

It is a very silly movie, and very ego-driven. The men are men (whatever that means), and the women have to look good. Kelly McGillis, who plays the instructor turned love interest to Cruise, tries to have a steel but this vanishes when she falls for Cruise's grin, which also became just as famous as the face that carried it. It's a shame, but in the 80's, as in many decades, women were woefully underused, underserved and underwritten.

This movie is about jet planes and male bonding; blended with a Harold Faltermeyer score and Kenny Loggins theme tune. It's so 80's.

On a $15m budget it managed to accrue $353m, making it the biggest film of the year.

Top Gun was also released on all major computers for the time, including the Commodore and its arch rival the ZX Spectrum. The games are no longer available except secondhand, but there is a PS2 version which is a little more up to date, head to Ebay for a browse

Top Gun Game