Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
Directed by Clint Eastwood
A hard-nosed, hard-living Marine gunnery sergeant clashes with his superiors and his ex-wife as he takes command of a spoiled recon platoon with a bad attitude.
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What critics compared Heartbreak Ridge to
The ensemble cast does a fine job making the guys around Swoff realistic individuals; versus the caricature treatment Clint Eastwood gave his recon platoon in “Heartbreak Ridge” (a film I like as a guilty pleasure).
It’s exactly what’s missing from “Hacksaw Ridge,” though it’s the core of another, far greater, similarly titled movie—Clint Eastwood’s 1986 war film, “Heartbreak Ridge.”
“If this hill doesn’t kill us, it will surely break our hearts” was a Marine’s comment before a battle (unseen by us) in Clint Eastwood’s 1986 film “Heartbreak Ridge.”
It’s a scenario similar to Clint Eastwood’s great “Heartbreak Ridge” — which coincidentally came out the same year as the original “Top Gun” — allowing a veteran star to test his mettle against some up-and-coming young whippersnappers and prove who’s still the boss.
Can you draw a line from the cockamamie Grenada invasion-set "Heartbreak Ridge" to the mournful "Flags of Our Fathers" to his latest, "American Sniper"?
“I’m not most men, sir!” Kyle splutters during a Marine training regime which sees him drenched, harangued and browbeaten by hard-arse sarges not unlike the one Eastwood played in Heartbreak Ridge .
From the gung-ho Heartbreak Ridge to his more thoughtful Flags of Our Fathers / Letters from Iwo Jima double-header, Eastwood’s frontline sojourns are consistent in their kinship with the common soldier.
By understanding of the endless shades of gray inherent to these issues, Eastwood recalls not the Regan-era simplicity of his earlier war pictures like Heartbreak Ridge, but his 2006 WWII double-header Flags of Our Fathers and Letter from Iwo Jima.
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Flags of Our Fathers marks filmmaker Clint Eastwood's first war-themed effort since 1986's Heartbreak Ridge, and although the movie suffers from an overlong running time and an unmistakable air of familiarity, the various performances and Eastwood's expectedly intriguing directorial choices make it easy enough to overlook such deficiencies.