And Foley doesn't "kick his axx", as some claim. Sure, there's some testosterone in his words, but he actually does this out of respect for Mayo as a last ditch effort to keep him from dropping out. He insists that he's going to quit, to which Foley tells him to meet him for a fight. But Mayo was closest to Worley and he's crazy with shock & grief at this point. In other words, Foley and the platoon were grieving too. After all, Worley was only one week away from graduating! In a sense, he was one of Foley's kids. He didn't have to do this and it shows that Foley isn't just an honorable man, but also that he cared about Worley. Foley informs Mayo that they all know what happened and even tells him they're sorry about Worley. After Worley's tragic death, Mayo confronts Foley while he's drilling the platoon. It was already there, of course, but the boot camp training has brought it to the fore, and Foley sees it. Foley sees that Mayo's no longer the aloof and selfish loner he was when he rode in on his motorcycle. Later, Mayo disregards breaking the record on the obstacle course (which he was definitely able to do) in order to encourage Seegar (the female recruit) to finally make it over the wall. At the end of this scene you can see that Foley develops respect for Mayo (which you get a glimpse of earlier when Mayo does extremely well on the obstacle course). He breaks, indeed, but he refuses to quit on the grounds that he has no where to go. Foley does everything he can to make Mayo break AND quit, but Mayo doesn't. This is especially so on the one weekend where he has Mayo to himself. Foley rightly pegs Mayo as a lowlife loner from the outset - a wannabe officer - and therefore puts on the pressure. It's an important job because people's lives in combat are dependent on the quality of the leaders and Foley takes his job seriously. Drill Instructor Foley's job is to weed out those who can't hack it as an officer. GRADE: A INSIGHTS ABOUT THE ENDING (***SPOILER ALERT*** Don't read further unless you've seen the film): An officer is a military leader. BOTTOM LINE: If you're in the mood for a film of this ilk "An Officer and a Gentleman" is the best of the lot. Besides this, time has to be condensed in a two-hour film. Both couples get intimate way too quickly, but maybe this is one of the flaws of the "Puget Debs" and explains why they have a problems getting marriage material, if you know what I mean. I'll just put it this way, she really fills out a pair of jeans, lol. Winger is alluring in a humble "girl next door" type of way (she out-shined Lynda Carter as Wonder Girl on "Wonder Woman," which is hard to believe), but Blount is even more alluring - yes, despite the negative aspects of her character. Does he have what it takes? Can someone as lowborn, aloof and un-trusting as Mayo make it as an officer? Debra Winger and Lisa Blount shine here as Mayo and Worley's babes. And then we're off to basic training where he's tested. It's all we need to know to understand why Mayo is the way he is. Instead, it ingeniously shares his past in a matter of minutes at the very beginning. Thankfully, the film doesn't get bogged down telling the back-story of Mayo. as Drill Instructor Folely, the babe is Paula (Debra Winger), the craft is aviation basic training, the arena is a Naval academy and the Puget Sound area of Washington (shot on location) and the buddy is Sid Worley (David Keith). In "An Officer" the angry young man is Richard Gere as Mayo, the mentor is Louis Gossett Jr. The plot similarities are obvious: They all include the angry young man who needs to prove his gifting, the uncompromising mentor, the encouraging babe, the craft, the arena and the doomed buddy. He has said he and Gossett still see each other on occasion and reminisce about how much they enjoyed making this film together.Released in 1982, "An Officer and a Gentleman" was the obvious inspiration of films like Tom Cruise's "Top Gun" and "Days of Thunder." "An Officer and a Gentleman" was the first and best, by far.
Despite this incident, Gere has said he takes full responsibility for it, even all these years later, and that it has not ruined a mutual friendship between him and Gossett. In order to keep filming moving forward and not fall behind, Gere and Director Taylor Hackford called upon another African-American karate expert who stood in as a double for Gossett, so the scene could wrap up filming. He did not show up again to the set for another two days afterwards. Frustrated and not thinking clearly, Gere accidentally kicked Gossett in the groin during filming, to which Gossett responded by leaving the set very abruptly. Gere had apparently mastered his karate moves, while Gossett reportedly continued to struggle with them after being trained. were specially trained for the karate scenes that are used in the basic training sequences in the film. In a 2013 interview, Richard Gere said that he and Louis Gossett, Jr.