‘G.I. Jane’ receives honorable discharge

By Gus Bode

To say that a director either makes or breaks a movie is a definite understatement. In the case of G.I. Jane, director Ridley Scott takes a mediocre script, and the biggest female box-office draw in Hollywood, and puts together a surprisingly good movie.

This movie may just save the corroding career of Demi Moore. I mean, did anyone honestly like Striptease?

Moore is Lt. Jordan O’ Neill, a woman chosen to be the first female to go through Navy SEAL training by Texas Senator Lilian DeHaven (Anne Bancroft). On the surface, DeHaven looks like she’s campaigning for equal rights for women in the military. But as the movie progresses, her motives become egotistically wicked.

Advertisement

So now we have O’Neill going through the most gruesome military training possible. This is where Scott (Alien, Blade Runner) takes over. He builds on the premise that O’Neill has to not only pass the training, but she has to fit in with her male cohorts as well.

This isn’t easy when she has to answer to a malignant command master chief (Viggo Mortensen). Whether or not the master chief accepts having a woman in his program is left unresolved. This leaves the audience in bitter anticipation of his next move and clearly makes his screen time the best part of the film.

One of the more interesting scenes is when the trainees embark on a mock mission against current SEALs. This is where O’ Neill and the master chief violently square off, and she begins to gain the acceptance of her fellow trainees.

The plot thickens when O’Neill learns that she was just a pawn in DeHaven’s re-election game. Scott decides not to make the political turmoil a major twist, and he instead focuses on the climactic mission at the end.

This movie could never float under a director afraid to take risks. Scott gambled on G.I. Jane, and he turned it into a visually appealing movie that keeps the action rolling surprisingly well.

Advertisement