Image Credit: Everett Collection
For years, Tony Scott was the top gun of adrenalized action flash. But was he a good filmmaker? With almost any other director, you might answer that question with a “yes” or a “no” or maybe a shrug of “eh.” But Scott, who took his own life on Sunday, was a special case. I was often ambivalent about him, but to his credit, he rarely invited a shrug. He directed some very big hits, and made famous and influential movies, but quite often the very qualities that excited audiences about his work — the propulsive, at times borderline preposterous popcorn-thriller storylines; the slice-and-dice editing and the images that somehow managed to glow with grit; the fireball violence, often glimpsed in smeary-techno telephoto shots; the way he had of making actors seem volatile and dynamic and, at the same time, lacking almost any subtext — were the same qualities that kept him locked outside the gates of critical respectability. A much simpler way to pose the Tony Scott Question is this: Was Top Gun a good movie? That’s a question that’s much richer than it sounds, and I can illustrate it by recalling my own critical relationship to that much-loved, much-mocked 1986 need-for-speed crowd-pleaser. READ FULL STORY »
