What a shame that a really competent director like Andre de Toth who specialized in slippery, shifting alliances didn't get hold of this concept first. He could have helped bring out the real potential, especially with the interesting character played by William Bishop. As the movie stands, it's pretty much of a mess (as asserted by reviewer Chipe). The main problems are with the direction, cheap budget, and poor script. The strength lies in an excellent cast and an interesting general concept-- characters pulled in different directions by conflicting forces. What was needed was someone with vision enough to pull together the positive elements by reworking the script into some kind of coherent whole, instead of the sprawling, awkward mess that it is, (try to figure out the motivations and interplay if you can). Also, a bigger budget could have matched up contrasting location and studio shots, and gotten the locations out of the all-too-obvious LA outskirts. The real shame lies in a waste of an excellent cast-- Hayden, Taylor (before his teeth were capped), Dehner, Reeves, along with James Millican and William Bishop shortly before their untimely deaths. Few films illustrate the importance of an auteur-with-vision more than this lowly obscure Western, which, in the right hands, could have been so much more.
Review of Top Gun
