BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Supelice Dreadfully Boring

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

zkonedog Last year, Clint Eastwood wowed moviegoers with his gritty, realistic performance as Walt "Get Off My Lawn!" Kowalski in the film "Gran Torino". In "Heartbreak Ridge", the U.S. Marines are the "lawn" and Eastwood (once again) isn't taking any prisoners.Basically, the film centers on a Marines Recon unit of the 1980s that, in all aspects, has "gone soft" in a time of peace. Gone is the strict military discipline of the 1940s-1960s, and in its place is a disrespectful, laissez-faire attitude towards fighting for our freedoms. That all changes, of course, when Sergeant Thomas Highway (Eastwood) is brought in to lead the unit. Though Highway is only given the assignment as a disciplinary measure, it quickly becomes clear to him how far the Marines have fallen. No angel himself (Highway is shown instigating a prison riot at the beginning of the film), Highway goes about instilling into a rag-tag bunch of young men the kind of military values that he holds near and dear.Much like "Gran Torino", then, the most entertaining portion of this film is watching Eastwood embody that kind of old-world toughness that is on its way out (for better or worse) as the World War II and Korea veterans begin to pass away. Both Highway and Kowalski are the type of men who will have your back to the end if you respect them and do right by them, but the only way they know how to show it is through harsh profanity, crude jokes, and a crotchety demeanor that belies their true emotions. Whereas Walt bonds with a young boy who shows potential but just needs some strong leadership in his life, Thomas Highway runs the same emotional gamut with his Marines Unit.There are only a few things that keep this movie from "instant classic" status, those being Highway's rather un-interesting love life on the military base, as well as an ending that just seemed to fall a bit flat considering the entertainment that preceded it. "Torino" was a bit more adept (and thus more deserving of a five-star rating) at handling the emotional drama of Eastwood's character, as well as providing a better send-off.Thus, whether you want to look at "Heartbreak Ridge" as a prequel to "Gran Torino", or "Torino" as a sequel to "Ridge", the similarities between both films are readily apparent. If you loved watching Eastwood's gruff, tough Walt Kowalski portrayal, you will love this film as well. If you were offended by the type of prejudices that Walt held, steer a wide berth around this movie.

JesseFloSpalding I loved this movie with the exception that it was filmed on the wrong coast. I'm a Marine from the 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, which is the unit they are supposed to be in. It definitely is not Camp Lejeune, NC. No mountains there. If it had been shot on location it would have been perfect. As for the Recon being as undisciplined as they were, it was on the extreme side of reality. Recon did get away with a lot compared to other grunts but there are perks to being in an elite unit. Most of the actors did a pretty good job portraying Marines. This is in my top three movies about Marines. Being a Marine is a part of my life I will never forget. One last thing, it was said the Marine Corps disowned this movie officially when it came out. This was said because of the foul language. Reality, Marines cuss, and often, it is a fact. The move was only for PC reasons. Ask most Marines and they liked the movie.

Spikeopath One of Clint Eastwood's most accessible 80s movies, Heartbreak Ridge sees the gruff actor on very fine form. Though the "war is hell" core that fills out the last quarter via a rather silly gun toting rescue mission in Grenada does lack conviction. The film wins its stripes courtesy of James Carabatsos' razor witty script and the sub plot involving ex wife Aggie (Marsha Mason). For all its macho posturing and training routine shenanigans (you will wish we could have stayed at boot camp once Grenada arrives), at its heart is a very tender movie about a man who can't let the career go, and the wife (ex) who simply lived hell each day as her man was off at war (Korea/Vietnam et al).That said, it's the comedy that has made the film one of the most quoted film's of big Clint's career. Be it Eastwood himself tossing off witty put downs to his rag tag band of men, or the likes of Mario Van Peebles hilariously looking like some punk version of Michael Jackson, there's a lot of fun to be had in every other frame. There's even a guy here whose thighs are bigger than Sly Stallone! So, yes there's many stereotypes here, none more so than Everett McGill's fresh out of school prig Major Powers, and for sure the ending is never in any doubt what so ever. But get in line and enjoy the fun whilst noticing that it does have under the surface themes well worth our time as well. 7/10

tieman64 "The de facto role of the United States Armed Forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing." - Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters "The weaker and poorer a country is, the more dangerous it is as an example. If Grenada can succeed in bringing about a better life for its people, some other place that has more resources will eventually ask, 'why not us?'" - Chomsky Clint Eastwood stars in and directs "Heartbreak Ridge", a dumb propaganda film about US military actions in Grenada. Made with Pentagon support and constructed in the mould of 1950s war films (particularly "Take the High Ground" and "Sands of Iwo Jima"), most of which saw tough-guy Sergeants (John Wayne, Richard Whitmark) grooming misfits for war, the film stars Clint Eastwood as Gunnery Sergeant Highway, a no-nonsense warrior who takes a band of delinquents and builds them up into hard-as-nails killers.All the genre's clichés are here: Highway is the tough daddy disciplinarian whom the group slowly learn to love, his grunts are all rebels and misfits who learn to "heroically" do their duty, and high ranking military men outside of Highway are presented as being inept goof-balls. As is the case with all these films, the very non-conformity of Highway and his boys – their supposed dissidence and "individuality" in the face of state ideology – disguises/facilitates their absolute conformity."Ridge" climaxes with Operation Urgent Fury, the 1983 US invasion of Grenada. Before this the film shamelessly parrots the line of Pentagon spin-doctors. Eastwood and his grunts do not invade the tiny island of Grenada, instead they "go to Grenada to rescue US tourists, school kids and students" from "evil soldiers". One must remember that the official pretext for invading Grenada back in the 1980s was "the protection of American lives", specifically 800 students at the US run St George's University of Medicine. In reality none of the students were in danger, none wanted to leave and the invasion was actually designed to oust Maurice Bishop, the people's revolutionary who rallied the islands few thousand inhabitants against Prime Minister Erich Gairy. Within months Bishop had put in place policies which irked Carter and Reagan, who were all at the time busy overthrowing/assassinating similar democratically elected leaders and/or left-wing movements in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America.Bishop achieved more in a few months than anyone expected, Grenada reaching a 9 percent cumulative growth rate, unemployment dropping from 50 to 14 percent, agriculture diversified, cooperatives developed, imports dropping from 40 to 25 percent as a result of sustainability measures, literacy rates jumping to 98 percent, a free education and health system being established, the number of schools tripling and various industrial programs set in motion.At the time, Grenada's turn-around was praised by the World Bank. But Carter would adopt an adversarial attitude and put in place a program to assassinate Bishop and isolate the tiny Caribbean island. And so the UN Mission in Grenada is bugged, Bishop's party is infiltrated by the CIA, Western media begins to spread propaganda with the aim of discouraging tourists, the CIA begins a destabilisation program and rumours are spread about Soviet submarine, missile and air bases being present on the island. As far as the public is concerned, the tiny island of Grenada is a rouge, terrorist state. When all these rumours are debunked by journalists leading up to the invasion, the major news chains refuse to air retractions. Meanwhile the CIA begins planting bombs at local rallies, inadvertently kills several civilians and sets about trying to weaken the island's economy. This goes on for roughly 4 years.Prior to the invasion, The CIA begins to sew discord in Bishop's Party. Bernard Coard, Bishop's childhood friend and co-revolutionary, begins to break away from Bishop. Coard stages a coup and arrests Bishop, but Bishop is set free by a crowd of some 10,000 Grenadians, all staunch supporters. In response Coard's men apparently massacred Bishop and his closest followers. To this date no one knows where the orders came from and who committed the murders. Coard blames the CIA, the CIA blames Coard. Coard is a free man today. Gairy was given diplomatic immunity in the US. Coard's actions were used as a pretext to invade the island; these plans were drawn up years earlier.To facilitate the invasion the US constructs an unbelievable hoax in which it is stated that the Organizaton of Eastern Caribbean States had asked the US to invade the backwater island in order to "protect other Caribbean islands from Grenadian aggression". The invasion takes place, its date of execution designed to distract the public from American casualties and failed US policy in Lebanon (250 US troops dead days earlier). Declassified documents would reveal that US bombing runs systematically targeted Grenadian factories; one of the first targets was a canning plant which helped Grenadians can their own food (rather than relying on foreign companies).The Pentagon claims that "weapons of mass destruction were found", which are years later revealed to be rifles manufactured in the 1870s and two Bren guns circa 1950. The US puts in place an interim government, rigged courts and tribunals are set up to assign blame, lawyers and judges are paid hush money, neoliberal polices are put in place to favour foreign investment, state enterprises are given over to foreign private interests and modern consumer capitalism is officially brought to Grenada. In 1991 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights find that throughout this pantomime the US Government under Carter and Reagan had violated a slew of laws and articles. The report was released when US F16s were bombing Baghdad.4/10 – Worth one viewing for the always-cool Clint Eastwood. See instead "Full Metal Jacket" and Cox's "Walker".