A Marine Corp lifer, starting his last tour of duty before retirement, sees the bumpy road his life has taken become more complicated, due to feisty recruits, by-the-book officers and a salty ex-wife to whom he's still attracted.
The Marines are looking for a few good men. Unfortunately you ain't it.
What is Heartbreak Ridge? Literally, the name of a battle during the Korean War. In
fiction, a motion picture about a tough-as-nails and close-to-retirement Gunnery Sergeant named
Tom Highway (Clint Eastwood, The Rookie) who has
seen war take its toll on his life but who cannot bring himself to leave the Corps. Arguably
Eastwood's finest picture in which he both starred and directed prior to his glory years following the
major success of Unforgiven,
Heartbreak Ridge follows convention and plays out with a trite and transparent plot in tow,
but the picture nevertheless manages to draw in its viewers through strong character development
and an honest look at both the positives and pitfalls of life as a career Marine. Though capped off
by an extended action sequence, Heartbreak Ridge
isn't a
prototypical War film, but like the best War films, it proves itself to be far more thematically and
emotionally relevant than its military façade might otherwise suggest.
Admit it: you love that distinctive sound of the AK-47, too.
July 1983. Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway's (Eastwood) life is in shambles. This Marine Corps
lifer has entered the twilight of his life and is approaching the mandatory end of his military career.
His personal life has crumbled; he's fallen into drink and engages in barroom brawls with men half
his age and
twice his size, landing him in jail for drunken and disorderly conduct and leaving his future in
jeopardy. He's divorced, the failed marriage a casualty of war not on the battlefield but from all
that comes with the territory of being a dedicated Marine. Highway is given one last chance by his
beloved Corps when he takes command of Recon platoon, a group comprised of various wash-outs
and never-will-be's who are more of a burden than an asset to the Marines. They're
undisciplined, untrainable, and disrespectful towards authority, but if anyone can turn them
around, it's the grizzled veteran Highway, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner and a veteran of
foreign wars. The biggest challenge of Highway's career awaits him; he must not only whip
a group of nobodies into shape but he must also try and rekindle an old romance while dealing with
fellow officers who disrespect him and
his methods despite his past service to his country and dedication to the Marine Corps.
"War is hell." Think about that adage for a moment. What comes to mind? Is it bullets
and bombs, battlefields, destruction, death, and despair? Probably. War is indeed all of those
things, but it's something more, something worse, something that remains long after the guns are
silenced. War isn't fleeting, it doesn't end when truces are signed, a leader is killed, or an enemy is
defeated. War is something that tears at a man's soul, reshapes his existence, and lingers
forevermore. "In war, there are no unwounded soldiers," José Narosky once said, and that's the
overlying theme of Heartbreak Ridge, a story that focuses on a career Marine Corps
Gunnery Sergeant who finds his personal life in tatters but his dedication to duty as strong as it
was when he earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroics on Heartbreak Ridge.
Eastwood's film compares and contrasts the "Gunny" character with a platoon of young,
inexperienced, and undisciplined Marines who, unlike their Sergeant, have their lives ahead of
them and not behind them, who see in the Corps not serious life-and-death business but instead
something more akin to summer camp, whose lives have not yet been torn asunder by the
ravages of
war both on and, arguably more damaging, off the field of battle. Reinforcing that latter
plot point is the picture's depiction of Highway's broken relationship ex-wife Aggie (Marsha Mason)
who not so much despises him but instead what the world around him -- the Marine Corps and his
combat duty overseas -- has done to him and, by extension, their relationship. It's one of several
elements that make Heartbreak Ridge more than its façade, a façade that's not unlike that
found in other films of its kind but one that still finds its own identity through several elements
that give it a personal weight that's sometimes absent in similarly-themed pictures.
From a more generalized perspective, Heartbreak Ridge isn't all that different from most
other "drill sergeant"-themed pictures. The characters are little more than stock cutouts, but
there's
a depth to them nonetheless -- found in Highway's character in particular -- that allows the movie
to
work despite something of a retread plot, blatant transparency, and no real surprises up its sleeve.
The tough-as-nails Marine versus the fresh, inexperienced, and
intolerant-of-structure-and-discipline recruits is a plot point that's found in films like Full Metal Jacket and
Major Payne. Heartbreak Ridge lacks both Stanley Kubrick's smoothness and R.
Lee Ermey's edge on one end of the spectrum and is absent Damon Wayans' comedic timing and
Payne's lighthearted nature on the other; Eastwood's film, instead, finds a middle ground
that nicely balances the two without ever venturing into the extremes demonstrated by those
other pictures. Despite an absence of action in its first two acts, Heartbreak Ridge rarely
slows down, even when it's exploring its more emotionally-challenging issues; the engaging
characters keep the film flowing, and the extended action sequence that dominates the final act
serves as a fine payoff that nicely rounds out its core
characters
as an extension to what they've experienced and learned over the course of the film.
Heartbreak Ridge enlists on Blu-ray with a 1080p, 1.78:1-framed transfer that's at its best a
modest presentation. Colors appear harsh and unnaturally boosted through much of the film, with
brighter shades in particular appearing less-than-refined, but the palette seems to even out as the
picture
moves along. Detail is unusually flat and uninspiring; uniforms, natural environments, man-made
structures, and weapons all appear devoid of anything beyond a cursory level of definition and texture.
Faces fare the worst, often looking virtually free of anything beyond the most basic reproduction of
lines, even on Clint Eastwood's furrowed brow and the rough scarring visible around his neck and
forehead. Black levels are often overpowering, and flesh tones capture an unnatural reddish tint. A
moderately heavy layer of grain covers the image, but so too do intermittent speckles. The image is
almost completely absent any sense of depth or spacing, and some shots take on an almost artificial,
digital sheen. Some minor blocking is visible in a few backgrounds, and there are some terribly soft
shots intermixed throughout the transfer. Heartbreak Ridge's Blu-ray presentation is certainly
a step-up from previous releases, but it pales next to many of the Blu-ray catalogue titles on the
market.
Heartbreak Ridge invades Blu-ray with a solid DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack that does
the film's Oscar-nominated sound proud. The picture's opening percussion-heavy beats may not be as
convincing or potent as one might expect, but they're suitably clear and distinct, setting a good tone
for the picture both thematically and aurally. The track delivers some enticing atmospherics along the
way, boasting solid environmental support during both outdoor scenes and in several interior
locales as well, notably a bar scene in chapter eight that features the sounds of cracking billiard balls,
light chatter, and breezy music floating about the back speakers. Guitar riffs nicely slice through the
listening area in chapter nine; they're not as convincing as those heard in better, more potent concert
soundtracks, but as with most material heard throughout the rest of the track, they're handled with
an ease that should make listeners satisfied with the experience. Gunfire is sharp and distinct; the
action scenes that end the film come alive with weapons fire crackling out of every speaker and several
rockets zooming through the listening area and ending with hefty and hard-hitting explosions.
Dialogue can sometimes come across as a bit squishy and unrefined, but there are generally no major
problems in that area. Overall, Heartbreak Ridge delivers a good, though not completely
polished, soundtrack; fans will enjoy the upgrade over the DVD's lossy encode, but there's nothing
here that could be described as a sonic revelation.
Heartbreak Ridge marks one of the better performances of Clint Eastwood's career, and
arguably his finest of the 1980s. Though his character isn't an original, Eastwood develops Tom
Highway into a
relatable and even sympathetic hero through both his attempts to rekindle his personal life while also
molding his successors into men worthy of the title "Marine." Not a conventional War picture,
Heartbreak Ridge foregoes heavy action in favor of stronger character development and
thematic relevancy, both of which only lend further weight to the action that marks the film's final act.
Warner Brothers' Blu-ray release of Heartbreak Ridge is disappointingly absent a deeper
supplemental package. While the soundtrack is good, the video quality is wishy-washy at best. Fans
of the film will still want to upgrade for the lossless soundtrack and a picture quality that beats the
DVD, but newcomers may want to rent before committing to the purchase of a disc lacking in both
supplements and a stronger video presentation.
