Critic Reviews

As an actor, Eastwood has created his most complex, fully dimensional characterization in Tom Highway; as a director, he has worked to put that characterization in a remarkably mature, self-critical context. Heartbreak Ridge is a film of genuine substance and courage.

The strengths and foibles of human beings are what this film--and all of Eastwood's directorial efforts--is all about, and his Tom Highway is one of the most vividly etched male characters seen onscreen in years.

Heartbreak Ridge has as much energy and color as any action picture this year, and it contains truly amazing dialogue.

In format, this is no more than the classic mission movie: first they train, then they do it for real. But the film belongs to Eastwood.

Heartbreak Ridge offers another vintage Clint Eastwood performance. There are enough mumbled half-liners in this contemporary war pic to satisfy those die-hards eager to see just how he portrays the consummate marine veteran.

As the gritty, raspy-voiced sergeant, Mr. Eastwood's performance is one of the richest he's ever given. It's funny, laid-back, seemingly effortless, the sort that separates actors who are run-of-the-mill from those who have earned the right to be identified as stars.

An unusually thoughtful look (and a broad one) at powers on the wane, at America's shift from Vietnam polarisations to 80's apathy, and at one man teetering on the brink of a lonely old age.

A vintage Clint Eastwood performance--in a film so uninvolving that you barely wake up for the big battle finale.

But to tell the truth, the Grenada Incursion looks even sillier on film than it did in the headlines.

The movie as a movie is a letdown, because all it consists of is Eastwood's hoarse, foul-mouthed complaining about today's "softies" and then his leading into battle in Grenada a bunch of rag-tag kids that he has molded into men. This is all material recycled out of films as varied as "The Dirty Dozen" and "Police Academy." [5 Dec 1986, p.A-C]