Starring Demi Moore, Viggo Mortensen and Anne Bancroft Directed by Ridley Scott Rated R, with strong profanity and brief nudity Running time 125 minutes Jack gives this film a rating of 8 out of 10

(Aug. 22, 1997) -- One-handed push-ups and a shaved head are only the most obvious examples of Demi Moore's commitment to G.I. Jane, the engrossing and topical new military drama from directer Ridley Scott. Moore has never been better than she is as Lt. Jordan O'Neil, a woman fighting for the right to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her male counterparts in the U.S. Navy.

A bright Navy intelligence officer, O'Neil has ambitions of moving beyond her military desk job. She gets her chance when a wily U.S. Senator, Lillian DeHaven (Anne Bancroft), pushes a test program through the Pentagon to put a woman in the toughest of all military training programs -- to become a Navy SEAL.

The regimen is considered the strictest and most physically demanding of any found in a military program -- some 60 percent of applicants typically fail. And nearly everyone involved in the O'Neil case -- except O'Neil and the senator -- expect her to fail, as well.

After all, O'Neil must submit to not only punishing training and arduous days without sleep, but also to all sorts of shenanigans because she's a woman. Her training officers and fellow applicants confront her regularly with sexist attitudes, the press spys on her with telephoto lenses, the military men who want to maintain a male institution hound her with unfounded charges of lesbianism -- and worse.

But none of her adversaries count on O'Neil's singular strength. Even when she becomes fodder for compromising politicians who betray her, she refuses to surrender.

G.I. Jane originated as a screenplay by Danielle Alexandra, whose political thrillers (China Doll and White Blood) have labeled her "the female Tom Clancy." Indeed, her script conveys an aura of authenticity in both military and human matters. (I wonder, though, about the harsh brutality of the SEAL training. Either the beating and kicking of recruits is dramatic license, or it warrants investigation.)

Moore digs down deep for this performance -- making O'Neil's courage and conviction utterly believable. But she also expertly conveys the film's few moments of vulnerability -- the embarrassment she is forced to feel when she's observed naked in the shower by her drill sergeant (Viggo Mortensen), her pain and determination as she shaves herself bald so fellow recruits won't give her preferential treatment.

Mortensen, meanwhile, makes the training leader a man of intimidating power and mystery -- a perfect adversary on the parade ground -- while Anne Bancroft is convincing as the smart, wheeling-and-dealing senator who makes O'Neil the guinea pig for her social and political experiments.

G.I. Jane has been directed with visceral energy and intelligence by Ridley Scott, so Demi Moore's portrayal of a strong, determined woman should come as no surprise. After all, the British-born Scott previously directed Sigourney Weaver as the first modern female action hero in Alien, and then went on to create Hollywood's most popular rallying cry for feminism, Thelma and Louise.

Here, though, Scott follows the questionable example of his younger brother, director Tony Scott, by tacking an action sequence onto the end of his film, as Tony did with Top Gun. Both films were set in peacetime military situations, yet each director found a way to put his central characters into combat. And neither case seems very plausible.

That miscue aside, G.I. Jane is a thought-provoking, well-acted study of a modern issue that refuses to go away: The role of women in a gender-blind military. Like Lt. O'Neil on the target range, the film hits a bull's-eye.