Rent Heartbreak Ridge (1986)

It's Eastwood On Fine Form - Heartbreak Ridge review by GI

Whilst this is a fairly standard vehicle for Clint Eastwood who does a reasonable directing job too it's actually one of those entertaining films in his oeuvre because of the injection of gutsy humour. A big flag waver celebrating Eastwood's proclaimed patriotism this is military drama about the US marines with Eastwood as the grizzled and curmudgeonly Gunnery Sergeant Highway a veteran of Korea and Vietnam who has won the Medal of Honour. He returns to his favourite combat battalion much to the disgust of his buy-the-book, bureaucratic C.O. (Everett McGill) and there he takes on a squad of lazy marines and turns them into a gung ho bunch of fighters who get tested in the US invasion of Grenada in the mid 1980s. The best parts of the film are the training scenes and the attempts by the youngsters to rid themselves of this new tough NCO and the battles Highway has with his boss. This all climaxes in some combat in Grenada. There's romance thrown in with Highway's ex wife played by Marsha Mason. Eastwood gets to be a super tough soldier and fight loads of bigger toughies all the while using some very imaginative insults. There is nothing in the narrative that seeks to look into the rights or wrongs of combat or of young men being sent to war as it's all just a celebration of the military. So don't think Full Metal Jacket (1987) or anything like that this is more like the John Wayne style war films such as Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). But it is just a good ol' action yarn that will entertain.

Clichéd gung-ho Clint knocks idle recruits into shape - amusing but no Oscar winner - Heartbreak Ridge review by RP

Clint Eastwood is one of my favourite actors and directors. I like the way that he has matured as an actor from macho roles where he does little other than squint and curl his lip into what might be described as 'experienced old man roles'. As a director he has an easy, direct touch that can be quite subtle.

But 'Heartbreak Ridge' is anything but subtle - it's a macho, US-Marines-are-wonderful, old-men-can-show-young-whippersnappers-a-thing-or-two, highly clichéd movie.

And yet I like it. It's direct and unpretentious. It is what it is - popcorn entertainment where Korean veteran Clint knocks a platoon of unruly recruits into shape and makes men of them - you know the kind of thing. Plenty of f-ing and blinding, ribald jokes, poking of fun at over-inflated military egos, and Clint's trademark disrespect for authority. All routine stuff.

There is one thing that grates on me as a Brit. The film is set against the background of the remarkably heavy handed 1983 invasion of Grenada by US troops - and Grenada is a Commonwealth country. Frankly, that's not the right and friendly thing to do; indeed it's a violation of international law, however much you dislike the regime - but if the gung-ho attitude shown by the military in this film is in any way accurate (what, a Hollywood movie accurate?) then perhaps it's not surprising.

'Heartbreak Ridge' has not been without controversy as it shows a number of incompetent officers and NCOs. But they're there really to allow Clint's character to show a 'Dirty Harry'-style disrespect for authority, so nothing really new there. Despite that and the dodgy Ronald Reagan invasion of inoffensive little Grenada, I find the film an amusing diversion.

I'll give it 3/5 stars - amusing it may be, but frankly it's no Oscar winner and deserves no better.