TopGun - A Short Defense Of

For years now, there has been something I've been wanting to get off my chest and now I think the time has come for me to register my protest.

Quite simply the problem (apparently; though I myself don't see it as one) is that I think of TopGun as one of the epic stories of our time. Granted it does not run nearly as long as a Tolstoy but who has the time anymore for long winded Russian Realism? In a little under two hours, TopGun expounds all the profundities of life be it friendship, love, self doubt and self discovery or the absurdity of Cold War logic painting these against the etherised canvas of a timeless dream - of Man's Icarusian desire to as Rushdie put it, be "creatures of air...reborn in flight" and having shuffled off these coils, soar unshackled amongst the clouds. TopGun exposes a modernity which by the inexorable anabasis of its progress has imposed upon us all the rat race and the idea of competition - or "the need - the need for speed" if you like - via the sublime allegory of F-14s zipping hither-thither across the skies at Mach 2 trying to outdo each other. Sound familiar?

Did your heart not break when Viper uttered those three cold words of inevitability - Goose is dead? Did your soul not soar believing that there was hope for love afterall when Charlie returned, popped a quarter into the jukebox and... ah the dance of life. Were you not also at the moment of your greatest doubting, looking up to the heavens saying, "Talk to me ______. Talk to me." Did you not, when jet fighters were being blown up in great balls of fire, like Sting, also hope that the Russians love(d) their children? Have we not all at one point of our life or another wanted to be "the best of the best"?

Were you not entertained?!!!!

I have seen TopGun 67 times now; yes, I can lip synch the dialogue and I have endured the endless the ridicule of dilettantes who subscribe to the tyranny of opinion as it is circulated by a group of 'specialists' who have taken it upon themselves to anoint The Criterion amongst films. But I have not always been strong; like Maverick my faith too has wavered and there have been times when I may have "lost that lovin' feeling" and felt like I was flying on vapour with no landing in sight. But somehow always, I pop in the DVD and I "re-engage". Oh TopGun has never failed to "take my breath away".

If anyone's looking for me, I'll be out somewhere on a "highway to the dangerzone"...