[THE CHALK-OUTLINE]
Navy SEALs (1990): Breakdown by Rantbo
Team of elite Air, Land and Semen kill terrorists. Are gay.
[THE EXECUTION]
This film was made for one reason and one reason only. To make some TOP GUN money. No clue if it succeeded financially (I highly doubt it), but the film definitely failed to touch the hearts and minds of the movie going public. This flick has become pretty much a joke, and after watching it a couple times now, I’m a part of the punch line. But, I have no problem with it. Being part of the joke that is. As for the movie, I will say that I find it much more entertaining than TOP GUN, but it still doesn’t do anything for me.
Large portions of the film are extremely boring and filled with–well filler. With sub-plots featuring some reporter chick and a wedding interrupted, it was snoozeville. And the male-on-male military brother bullshit gets old and stale after the obligatory horsing around montage. The film runs an hour and fifty-three minutes and would have benefited greatly from a ninety minute cut-off.
The action sequences are well shot, but for how many bullets are fired and how many people are involved in the shootouts, the body count should have been WAY higher. Most of the time you just end up watching a team of mostly nameless SEALs squeezing round after round, dumping clip after clip and never hitting anything but air. And the air isn’t bleeding or exploding, so why should I care? This entry is mediocre at best, with it’s only saving grace being God himself, Bill Paxton. Paxton plays Dane, a.k.a. God, the team’s sniper. He sports a push-broom mustache and… He’s Bill Paxton! I shouldn’t have to explain this further. Watch this one, or don’t. No big loss either way.
[HOW BAD-ASS ARE THE MAIN CHARACTERS?]
Sheen and Biehn (sounds like a sex act) are Hawkins and Curran
I really like both of these guys as actors, but how lame is it that Charlie Sheen out Bad-Asses Michael Biehn? ‘Cuz he does, and that’s sad. Sheen is the risk taker, the rebel and all-around party boy to Biehn’s by-the-book, solemn leader type. They make a good couple, but their acts of bad-assness are few and far between. They both go into the heart of darkness with no fear, but they never really do much. Sheen does get a few kills and gave me a few laughs by acting like a crazy-asshole, but for the most part these two were pretty boring.
[THE BODY COUNT: 40ish]
The SEAL/Terrorist kill ratio is almost 10 to 1. The SEALs manage to bag around 30 haters of freedom and Team Terror only manages to take out 3 of our boys and a Navy helicopter pilot. Not bad, considering they are mindless third-world scum. But then right at the end they manage to explode a bus with at least 5 of their own men in it. Thus making their score a -1. Stupid rag-heads. Except for God’s kills, and the Helicopter pilot, (who is executed, point blank–Cherry Pie) it’s pretty standard shoot-fall-down fare.
[MOST SATISFYING DEATH]
Gonna have to go with the all-mighty himself. While setting up his 50 caliber sniping rifle to free up his pinned down team, God catches the scent of a filthy back-stabbing brown fellow and turns, gun in hand, just in time to eviscerate the fucker at close range.
It’s a miracle!
[DUDESWEAT AND MACHISMO]
When we first meet our crack squad of military elite, they are all pissed and half naked at a beach house with not a woman to be seen. It’s the morning of one team member’s wedding, The “Are You In Good Hands?” guy from the All-State commercials, and he is the only one sober enough to be contemplating the course of his mislead actions. All-State is worried that he may be making the wrong choice, which he thinks (as Charlie Sheen and I will soon agree with) is leaving behind his team for a woman and a life of heterosexual compromise. Charlie is having none of this sell-out bullshit and decides to bail on the festivities by jumping out of a moving jeep and over the side of a bridge into a river. And to me, he is the sensible one. I too would rather risk cracking open my skull and dying than take part in a fucking wedding. Spending valuable party/sleeping/doing anything else time watching a close friend profess his most intimate feelings for a woman AND expect me to dress-up AND bring a present!? Fuck that shit, I’m with Chuck and Geronimo.
The golf montage. Whew boy. While it doesn’t quite put out the same amount of overtly homoerotic imagery as the Volleyball sequence in TOP GUN, it comes close. After making a bad judgment call that could lead to the death of millions, Biehn is told to take the guys out and relax while the government big wigs figure out how to un-screw the team’s pooch. And what better way to un-wind than a rousing game of short-short-golf. Which is like put-put golf, but with everyone wearing short-shorts. Shirts optional.
The team doesn’t so much play though, as simply drink beer and drive around in golf-carts canoodeling one another. Including, but not limited to, diddling Sheen’s butt with a club while he is fucking around with his putts. All this is made extra super-hero gay by the fact that “The Boys Are Back In Town” is playing over their shenanigans–the Bon Jovi cover. Fabulous! And then to cap it off, Sheen salutes Biehn and says, “Fellow cake eater.” Now I wasn’t positive, so I looked it up, and sure enough, the term ‘cake eater’ is slang for gay. Which is redundant, as he already saluted Biehn, which is the universal hand signal for ‘I’ll gurgle your sperm if you ask, SIR!’ And the conversation continues:
Sheen: [cracks a ‘brain-grenade’] “What? Are you still thinking about Bad Guys?”
Biehn: “Heyeah. As a matter a-fact I am.
Sheen: “It’s old news, man–we go in there, we hit ‘em and forget ‘em. That’s what we DO, right?”
Biehn: “There’s more to it than that.”
Sheen: “Look! If you’ve got a problem, do sumthin about it, you stick it out, but don’t be afraid to get it cut off. That’s what I always say! You get these emotions under control, son.”
And then there’s this…
[flashvideo filename=videos/NavyGay.wmv.FLV /]
The prosecution rests.
[EXPLOITATION AND MISOGYNY]
Well, it’s now the nineties, so it’s not too surprising that the women of this film are smart, professional and don’t feel the need to boost male egos. But I won’t lie and say I’m OK with it. The reporter does end up succumbing to Biehn’s machismo, and beds him late in the movie. Solidifying that no matter how Rosie Riveter a professional female considers herself, it’s only so long before they inevitably fall for a macho dickhead. NOTE: Sheen and Biehn were fighting at this point in the movie and on a trial separation, so this doesn’t constitute as infidelity.
[EPIC MOMENT AND BEST ONE-LINER]
Every scene centered on God.
As for the one-liner, have to go with something Chuck says.
Sheen and another SEAL are facing a terrorist holding a woman at gun point and babbling about something in middle-easternese.
Sheen: “What’s he saying?”
Other SEAL: “Something about your mother.”
Sheen: [BANG!] “Never–talk about Mom.”
[THE MORAL OF THE STORY]
If you take all the gay from TOP GUN, move it to another branch of the military and put it in an action film, it still won’t be very good. And even when on America’s most elite team of ass-kickers, the black guy will still die first. Think of it as Action Affirmative.
[THE CHECKLIST: 13 outta 25]
[ ] Athlete(s) Turned “Actor”
[X] Clinging To The Outside Of A Moving Vehicle
[ ] Crotch Attack
[ ] Dialogue Telling Us How Bad-Ass The Main Character(s) Is/Are
[ ] Ending Featuring An Ambulance, A Blanket or A Towel
[X] Factory/Warehouse
[X] Giant Explosion(s)
[X] Heavy Artillery
[ ] Improvised Weapon(s)
[X] Macho Mode(s) Of Transportation
[X] Main Character Sports Facial Accessory(s)
[ ] Manly Embrace(s)
[ ] Notorious Stunt-Man Sighting
[X] Passage(s) Of Time Via Montage
[X] Politically Fueled Plot Point(s)
[X] Senseless Destruction Of Property
[X] Shoot Out(s) and/or Sword Fight(s)
[ ] Slow-Motion Finishing Move(s)/Death(s)
[X] Stupid Authoritative Figure(s)*
[X] Substance Usage and/or Abuse
[ ] Tis The Season
[ ] Torture Sequence(s)
[ ] Unnecessary Sequel
[X] Vehicle Chase(s)
[ ] Vigilante Justice
*I’d say a bunch of them, as a reporter is able to find out more information on the mission than the whole of the U.S. Military.
They want you, they want you. They want you as a new recruit.
NOTE: While the above picture is not from the movie, it was in the top 5 pictures to come up on google image search, when ‘navy seals’ was entered. A picture says a thousand lisp’d words, does it not?