Love lift me up! Yes, this is part of a series where I’ve been crunching some Oscar films that I hadn’t seen before. I always assumed this was a romantic drama that I’d get around to if I felt like it. The romantic part is the least interesting thing about this film. the most interesting? It has audio description right now on MAX! Also, I had no idea Taylor Hackford (Ray, Ant-Man) directed this.

It’s a shame that Richard Gere wasn’t nominated, and when it comes time to revisit this year, I hope I have finally seen enough content to put him in what I believe should have been an Oscar nomination for him. He’s fantastic, and against type. He’s so often these charming nice guys, that so see him do anything but is refreshing. It’s one of the reasons I really enjoyed him in underrated performances in Time Out Of Mind and Arbitrage, because they took what you thought you liked about Gere and flipped it, by either removing that which made him attractive, or that which made him seem like a good guy. Honestly, Chicago is a bit of a play on that as well. But here, as a recruit who needs molding he’s excellent.

David Keith also has one terrific breakthrough, and heartbreaking performance. The actually nominated for this Louis Gossett Jr is reliable in a role we’ve seen a thousand times before, and Robert Loggia rounds out the already strong cast. Then there’s Debra Winger. She’s fine. The romance part wasn’t what I thought made this film work, so her performance just really didn’t register for me. She has a few good scenes, and it’s not a flat performance, i just wasn’t drawn to it or her.

Yes, the song that is now an oldie and a goodie came from this, and Love Lift Us up is still a great choice for the Oscars, as the song has stayed the course. Sadly, it’s a romantic love duet in a film about a man finding the honor in his life, and it leans more on the romantic angle that I just did not get.

This is easily one of Gere’s best performances and I would have perhaps swapped David Keith for Louis Gossett Jr, as I can’t think of another time Keith would come close to a nomination, whereas Gossett Jr. is full of great performances.

The audio description is clearly newer than the audio track, but without sounding like it was created this year. it’s been around for a bit, but it’s still fresh audio on top of fairly well preserved audio. It feels very 80’s, and sounds like it. There’s sensitive material toward the end that I thought the audio description handled nicely.

I’m happy I forced myself to finally check this box, and I just have a very different set of nominations I would give this movie.

Final Grade: B+