DVDs in Review

Heartbreak Ridge (Clint Eastwood, 1986)

Title: Heartbreak Ridge (Clint Eastwood, 1986)

Release date: June 7 2010

Certificate: 15

Format: DVD, Blu-ray

Blu-ray RRP: £17.99

Rating: 3.5/5

Reviewed by Dave Lancaster

‘Heartbreak Ridge’ tells the story of a man who lives for war. Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway (Clint Eastwood) has made his life and career as a Marine and when there isn’t a war on he finds himself drinking, struggling to understand what the woman in his life wants and relieving himself on police cars.

He’s a traditionalist, or more accurately, he’s out of his time, but he isn’t the type to retire even when he’s not appreciated by the general public or his superiors – it’s typical latter day Eastwood and he knows by now how to play it to perfection.

Highway’s latest job is training up an unprofessional platoon before they get shipped off to Grenada to rescue some hostages. It’s like ‘Full Metal Jacket’ but centred on the drill sergeant instead of the platoon. ‘Heartbreak Ridge’ certainly isn’t as good as Kubrick’s war classic, but it has a similar vibe.

Eastwood films of this type are usually very formulaic (especially the ‘Dirty Harry’ series) but they’re underappreciated when it comes to the writing. Eastwood’s characters, including Highway, are just as brutal with words as they are with guns or fists. The dialogue in ‘Heartbreak Ridge’ is direct and extremely tight – its words belong in a film that’s less stereotypical on the whole.

Some of the clichéd characters drag the film down – such as Highway’s ex-wife who has all those predictable moments about him being more married to the armed forces than her, and Highway himself is a typical dinosaur running on rugged integrity and little else. His character would’ve benefited from being more vulnerable in the shadows like his excellent performance in the recent ‘Gran Torino’.  

His platoon is more ragtag than the film requires with too many losers to be on such a unit in the first place (remember these men enlisted, they weren’t drafted), but it hardly matters. Nevertheless they serve the needs of the plot that makes a sly hit at the new by-the-book leaders have become too soft and PC, when all these men really need is some discipline and to be surprised and inspired. 

Eastwood is a master at taking action films that have been filmed hundreds of times before and making them his own. Coupled with his tight, economical direction behind the camera, his screen persona is so strong that the pleasure comes from watching the film for what it is instead of immersing yourself. ‘Heartbreak Ridge’ certainly isn’t Eastwood’s best, but it’s a dark horse in his impressive body of work.

‘Heartbreak Ridge' is also available as part of Warner’s extensive DVD box set entitled ‘Clint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years’. which happens to be the largest single artist box set ever created for DVD. The extensive collection represents a perfect introduction to the prolific actor/director who rarely strayed from Warner Brothers, making it an almost complete filmography of the living legend. Titles included are:

1.    Where Eagles Dare (1968)
2.    Kelly's Heroes (1970)
3.    Dirty Harry (1971)
4.    Magnum Force (1973)
5.    The Enforcer (1976)
6.    The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
7.    The Gauntlet (1977)
8.    Every Which Way But Loose (1978)
9.    Any Which Way You Can (1980)
10.    Bronco Billy (1980)
11.    Honkytonk Man (1982)
12.    Firefox (1982)
13.    Sudden Impact (1983)
14.    Tight Rope (1984)
15.    City Heat (1984)
16.    Pale Rider (1985)
17.    Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
18.    Bird (Director’s Cut) (1988)
19.    The Dead Pool (1988)
20.    Pink Cadillac (1989)
21.    The Rookie (1990)
22.    White Hunter Black Heart (1990)
23.    Unforgiven (1992)
24.    Perfect World (1993)
25.    The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
26.    Midnight In The Garden Of Good and Evil (Director’s Cut) (1997)
27.    Absolute Power (1997)
28.    True Crime (1999)
29.    Space Cowboys (2000)
30.    Blood Work (2002)
31.    Mystic River (2003)
32.    Flags of Our Fathers (2006)
33.    Letters From Iwo Jima (2006)
34.    Gran Torino (2009)
35.    Invictus (2010)