Year of Eastwood #9

Heartbreak Ridge (1986)

Starring: Eastwood
Directed by Eastwood

Ughh, this is not one of Eastwood’s finest couple of hours. Heartbreak Ridge plays more like a rip-off of some of the 80’s blockbusters than the distinctive films of Clint’s career. There’s some Top Gun, some Officer and a Gentleman, and some really lame, lame music video like crap thrown in for good measure. Never before in my life have I wanted to hear some Danger Zone, dammit Maverick.

Clint is the grizzled Gunnery Sgt. Highway. He’s a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars and now he spends most of his spare time drunk or detoxing in jail cells. He’s about to be forced out from military service when he gets his last shot to whip a group of rowdy Marines into shape for duty. There’s the usual head-butting, pranks, and fisticuffs - before (big surprise) the guys come around to respect and admire the old battleaxe.

“I've drank more beer, pissed more blood, and banged more quiff than all you numb-nuts put together,” Clint introduces himself to his new recruits. Never mind the medical concerns from Clint's urinary problems ... what the hell is a quiff? I mean, I know what a quiff is, but I think one way to make sure you’ll never see any more quiff is to use words like quiff. I wasn’t even sure how to spell quiff. The movie is full of classics just like that one. Hard to believe that it didn’t become part of the American lexicon like “Go ahead, make my day.”

The big finale culminates with Clint’s recon platoon being called into duty to kick some ass in a real-life military action … in Grenada. Grenada? Is that the best they could come up with? Our country sure was desperate for some kind of real combat back in the 1980’s. I could be wrong but I think the actual maneuvers took less time than the two hours it took to watch this movie. For dramatic effect, some guy dies but the rest of the squad seems so unaffected by it that I’m pretty sure they just left him there cuz hey there was some celebrating to do … we just kicked Grenada’s ass.

Clint doesn’t so much as act in Heartbreak Ridge as he grumbles his way through it. His performance is pretty much Brando quality compared to the rest of the actors. Stereotype doesn’t even begin describe the group of misfits that make up the Marines troop. There’s some muscle head that seems like he would make some easy target practice out on the battle field. There’s some dork in Aviators that might as well have Tom Cruise written on his t-shirt. And then there’s Mario Van Peebles as the ultra smooth, rocka-wannabe. I’m sure Mario was really disappointed that this movie didn’t make him into a superstar. He’s lucky he ever got another job. I found myself rooting for those Grenadines to pick off a few more of those lousy punks.

The ending of the movie kinda implies that this victory in Grenada is somehow supposed to make up for all the missteps in America’s recent wars. Grenada? I just don’t get it. When the troops bust in to rescue the students being held captive, they walked in on some young co-ed getting out of the shower. Rule #1 if you ever have the misfortune of being a prisoner of war - gotta keep that quiff clean. Same goes for spring break.

Turns out that the actual Grenada incident was handled by the Army - but they wanted nothing to do with this movie, so they just used the Marines instead. Smart move by the Army. I’m sure Clint won’t want Heartbreak Ridge listed in his profile of Who’s Who In Movie Superstars. Ughh, let’s just move on to next week…