G.I. Jane (1997)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Some movies are just ridiculous right from the start and this is one of them. First there is no such thing as CRT. Second women are not in combat for very good reasons. Now while some women can compete at things like running or swimming, they cannot compete with anything that requires upper body strength. The idea that you can make it through BUD/s but somehow wash out in CRT training is also nuts. BUD/s has a 70% failure rate and only those who really want to be there will make it through. It's a lot harder than it looks. Safety is the number one concern in training and eating bad food (as they depict in the movie) has no point at all. The instructors in this movie come off as sadists where as in real training the instructors actually want you to succeed. The marines spent 2½ years doing research on integrated teams and in every case all male teams out performed integrated ones. You might be able to march 20 miles with 75 lbs. on your back but the real question is how effective are you when you get there? Simply put men are built for war and woman are not.

When this film came out I ignored it and finally got around to seeing some of it on You Tube recently. I watched about half an hour although I did anticipate watching the whole movie. Alas I was just so bored with it by the 30 minute mark I had to withdraw from the battlefield.And it was obviously going to be a real battle against boredom to survive the whole 2 hours of this travesty of a film. Clichéd dialogue from the start, exaggerated acting, the whole thing is a cartoon of reality. Of course the main premise is nonsense, a female navy seal is out to show the patriarchy that women can do the job just as well but that isn't what seals the fate of this trash.No, what seals the fate of this trash is the superficial photography and fast editing that makes the film look like a TV commercial, which isn't surprising when you consider that's what Ridley Scott is, a TV commercial director.I like Blade Runner, Alien, The Duelists, but post Blade Runner I think Ridley, like his brother Tony now deceased, has taken the lazy route of film direction and relying mostly on visuals at the expense of depth and substance.Not much more to say other than avoid this turkey. Doing 100 press ups is much more fun than watching this but I'm sure there will be a few monkey brains who will like this.

I adore this movie, not only for the remarkable performance of Demi Moore and Viggo Mortensen, but also for the way it handles its message. It's not a movie about feminists, Moore's character just want to be on the front lines, she doesn't care for equality or women's rights. The movie doesn't shy away from anything, it is brutal but not overly so. It's about much more than the army letting women fight. It's about how everything is political, how you can become a symbol without wanting to be, how the fight is never over. Moore has to fight to enter the program, and then she has to fight the Senator to stay there once she finally belonged, how even when he knows how strong she is, Mortensen still can't bring himself to risk her becoming hurt. It's a movie about how one person can change things without even wanting to. But that is not why I love this film. I love it because the main character don't take anything from anyone, be they her superior or a freaking senator. Demi Moore is a total bad-ass in this and that's why this movie is always glorious. I watched it a dozen times but I still find new things every time. This movie makes you think, but in a way where you don't even realize it. So many movies now shout their message loud and clear, but this one is more subtle about it, and you can watch as just another action movie about becoming a soldier, but you'll come out wiser or at least more prone to looking at sexism and feminism in a new way.

For Al Bundy, chicks comes from the « big (g)uns » magazine. « Top Gun » is the famous movie with Cruise joining the military. So, my title should be clear now as « GI Jane » is about a woman enlisting. As the actress is Demi, it's funny to see that she has explored all the scale of her femininity : to the extreme low here as being a soldier to the extreme high when she played a striper in « striptease ». It would be interesting to hear her feelings about those experiences but as a GI, she was more stunning as she dressed with the uniform instead of doing push up. Beyond this fashion note, the movie is a terrible tool for the cause of feminism : the explanation for her opportunity is totally lame as the arguments are drowned under a poor political scheme and they miss the target every time (her period, the lesbian threat ,…). Worst, this angle isn't used to dynamite the old, usual, unsurprising evolution of those military school movies : at first, the recruits suffer, then, some of them oppose, but at the end, they prove their value during an operation. Indeed, this movie is just drills after drills, with instructors shouting in megaphone. Finally, it's a propaganda for uncle Sam's military and never is questioned why the so-called first democracy in the world needs a such big army. Nobody wonders the legitimacy of their operation faraway of their coast and the fact that they are the first to kill in the desert state (wasn't it so an aggression ?). Thus, it made me realize that Ridley Scott is far away to have the credibility of a Spielberg or a Coppola. He is just an aesthete that sells his art to corporations and as long they pay for it, he doesn't ask questions (see also his « body of lies »). The only good surprise here was Viggo Mortensen as the instructor. He is excellent to depict authority with a certain heart so he was indeed at the right place here.