Review of Heartbreak Ridge (1955) by Paul S — 26 Jan 2008

Clint Eastwood plays a Marine gunnery sergeant who has been around since the Korean War era (the movie is set in 1983). Hard-drinking, hard-fightin', and hard-screwin', he is the perfect movie stereotype of the Marine drill sergeant, but somehow manages to infuse the character with enough gruffly aspirated wit and human fallibility to make the film quite engrossing.

This film is not one of my favourite Clint Eastwood flicks, but I don't think it could have been done any better. It is what it is: a well-told story about an old Marine whose personal code of conduct does not quite fit into the modern Marine Corps, and his efforts to mold his boys into men while sorting out his own life.

I enjoyed it quite a bit, and Gunny Sergeant Highway really does have some really funny lines in the film, mostly to the effect of, "Just because we're holding hands doesn't mean we'll be swapping spit in the showers.

" Actually, he has about 5 lines in this film that start with holding hands and end up in the shower, but there's enough humorous military homo-phobia/eroticism to make them all gems.