Heartbreak Ridge - Why I Still Love It

THIS one is more about nostalgia than any particular quality of film. But Heartbreak Ridge was the first 15 certificate film I saw at the cinema. And I went with my late father.

The film came out in UK cinemas in January 1987, when I was still 14. But I was desperate to see a Clint Eastwood film on the big screen, having narrowly missed out on Pale Rider in 1985 and having to hear about how good it was from friends.

In many ways, Eastwood had fuelled my early love of cinema. I loved watching his Spaghetti Westerns with my dad, who was also a massive fan of the actor.

So, ‘armed’ with sanitary pads in each shoe (to make myself look taller and avoid the need for a disastrous ID check), we headed to our local Staines Odeon and purchased a couple of tickets from the box office. My mum and sister, meanwhile, went to see Labyrinth for the third time… and were primed for us to join them should I be refused entry.

But fortune favoured the bold. I got in (heart firmly in mouth the whole time) and had a whale of a time.

Now, Heartbreak Ridge is by no means a classic Eastwood film. Not even close. It is one of his better 80s offerings. But it attracted a lot of controversy at the time of its release, not least because of its excessive use of profane language (something the actual Marines balked at before withdrawing their support for the film) but also because of historical inaccuracies. It was also considered to have something of an outdated attitude, a criticism that - to be fair - feels more appropriate with the passing of time.

But it does contain a strong Eastwood performance - the type of which played to his iconic status, yet also contained a deceptive amount of nuance. In many ways, it epitomised the term ‘star vehicle’.

Ironically, the inspiration for the film stemmed from a real life incident that is depicted as part of its final act battle of Grenada: namely, members of the 82nd Airborne Division using a pay telephone and a credit card to call in fire support (or an air strike) during the actual invasion of Grenada. The ensuing script was written by James Carabatsos, a Vietnam veteran.

Eastwood came on board after the screenplay had been knocking around Hollywood for some time and developed it as both producer and director. And it’s easy to see why it appealed.

His character, Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway (or ‘Gunny’ for short), is a battle scarred veteran of both Vietnam and Korea, who has previously won the Congressional Medal of Honour for his efforts during the battle of Heartbreak Ridge (of the film’s title) during the Korean War.

He’s a no-nonsense hard drinker, whose devotion to the Corps has cost him his marriage (to Marsha Mason’s Aggie) and earned him a reputation for breaking the rules and challenging authority. But he’s good at what he does: adapting, improvising and overcoming.

There are trace elements of various Eastwood characters throughout Highway’s subsequent journey: his disdain for authoritative bureaucrats evocative of Dirty Harry, his drunkenness reminiscent of his role as a jaded cop in The Gauntlet, and his awareness of his age and its inherent limitations a building block for what was to follow in more acclaimed performances in films like Unforgiven and In The Line of Fire.

It’s in that latter part that the role of Highway offers Eastwood the chance to excel. For while his put-downs form the basis for much of the film’s broad comedy, it’s the quieter, more intimate moments that give it any heart or depth.

His interaction with Mason’s Aggie shows both his sensitive side and his broken one. It sees him confronting his age and the direction his life has taken. There’s a keen sense of regret. Of wounded pride - Aggie’s jibe that he’s only really interested in her once more because of his impending retirement cuts like a knife.

There’s a conflict too - a clear difference between the often homophobic put downs and alpha male inclinations of his dealings with his recruits, or bar room bullies, and his reading of women’s magazines to gain a better understanding of women and their needs.

In many ways, there’s a subversion of some of the more well known mainstream Eastwood traits from the 70s (although the actor was no stranger to defying expectations with his roles, having previously delivered the likes of Play Misty For Me and The Beguiled in that decade).

But within the confines of Heartbreak Ridge, it gives the audience more of a rounded, complex character to root for.

Elsewhere, the film has shades of a sports comedy-drama like Bad News Bears, in which a wily veteran comes in to train and turn around the fortunes of a rag-tag team of youngsters. There’s the initial disdain for each other, the growing mutual respect and the turnaround in fortunes that make the hard graft worth it.

Here, it’s a disparate group of army recruits who would sooner trash talk their commanders and do their own thing than strap on a machine gun and wade into battle for their country. As Highway states: “The United States Marine Corps is looking for a few good men… Unfortunately, you ain’t it.”

You instinctively know they will be come movie’s end.

And much of the film’s [guilty] pleasure lies in seeing just how Highway achieved this: in part through knowledge, yet largely through humiliation. But his recruits make it easy for him to do so and get away with it, their initial lack of respect and capacity for insult just as blatant as Highway’s own disregard for them.

Hence, when a super-sized grunt nicknamed The Swede informs Highway that “I’m going to rip off your head and shit down your neck”, there is amusement to be found in just how easily Highway deals with him.

Likewise, when a suck-up sergeant informs Highway that “Major Powers and I are building an e-lite company of fighting men”, there’s equal glee in Highway’s retort: “The only thing you could build, Webster... is a good case of hemorrhoids.”

But the profanity can become excessive and it’s perhaps easy to see why the actual Marine Corps distanced themselves from it. It’s sprayed around as easily as the bullets discharged during the climactic Grenada sequence.

The film also loses points for that final act, in which jingoistic flag-waving somewhat takes over.

But perhaps it’s a measure of the generally uneven tone of the overall movie that for every scene that lands successfully - both the phoning in of the air strike and the use of the bulldozer to shield troops from gunfire are based on actual events - there’s one that hits the ground with a thud: such as Highway’s decision to shoot a wounded enemy in the back, which was also singled out by the Marines as a major no-no and probable war crime.

Many of the supporting characters also feel tokenistic and caricatured, from Everett McGill’s pencil pushing commander to many of the recruits, who more often than not conform to stereotypes without offering any depth. But that’s a failing of the script, as is the equally lightweight treatment given to the death of one of the recruits during the final act, or the struggles of one member to maintain his army career while supporting his family.

But that was largely irrelevant to my 14-year-old self. I enjoyed the comedy. I laughed along with my dad. And I even held my breath at times, hoping that Eastwood’s veteran wouldn’t perish during the final battle scenes (in hindsight, that could also have been down to not wanting to be discovered, under age, in the cinema).

It was a great bonding experience between father and son - and a happy memory from my early teenage years.

And don’t think, for a second, that Eastwood’s magic in the role has diminished over time.

I own Heartbreak Ridge on DVD and recently retrieved it from the garage (among my Clint Eastwood collection) to show my 14-year-old son (there’s a beautiful symmetry at play here, I feel).

Unlike me, he was less sure of watching it… a grunt of dissatisfaction accompanying the decision to turn it into that night’s film choice (although he stopped short at threatening to 'rip off my neck and...', well, you know).

But wouldn’t you know it? Clint won him over too, whipping him into an appreciative state as easily as he did his Marines. Hence, my son laughed at all the right times. He cuddled in close (always a sign of mutual enjoyment and a film choice well made). And he admitted to how much he enjoyed it afterwards.

And it provided another fantastic father-son bonding experience. Hoo-ra!