Eastwood serves us up with a hoary old story about a platoon of malcontents whipped into fighting shape by a tough veteran sergeant.

| May 27, 2021

There are no surprises in films like Heartbreak Ridge, only catharsis. Like war and contact sport, they release the pent-up aggression of adolescent males. Never mind the cliches, feel the muscle.

| Dec 15, 2020

There's a by-the-numbers feel to it all, but Eastwood is the main reason to watch, as he whips the troops into shape in readiness for the invasion of Grenada.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 6, 2020

The whole film seems ideologically forced and out of place, an attempt to resurrect the retentive virtues of Ford and Hawks without the cultural context that gave them expressive strength.

| Aug 6, 2020

''Heartbreak Ridge'' is a film of genuine substance and courage.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 6, 2020

Screenwriter Jim Carabatsos (yes, the very guy who wrote No Mercy) is a Vietnam vet. Yet he seems to have no idea of how men fight, get along or talk.

| Aug 6, 2020

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.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 6, 2020

A film so uninvolving that you barely wake up for the big battle finale.

| Aug 6, 2020

A drama that gets you in totally without you ever realising it.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 15, 2020

What elevates the film are its dead-on verisimilitude about 1980s military culture, its lightly-worn insights into the larger issues at stake, and its precision-lathed dialogue, which is smart but never smarmy.

| Jul 13, 2018

Set during the Grenada War, Clint Eastwood's war movie is a formulaic, old-fashioned actioner wearing its ideology on its sleeves.

| Original Score: C+ | Jun 4, 2012

Heartbreak Ridge offers another vintage Clint Eastwood performance.

| Jul 7, 2010

You may not always like Eastwood's films, but you seldom get downright bored by them.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Jun 15, 2010

For a war film, Heartbreak Ridge is oddly lighter in spirit than many of Eastwood's other films from this period.

| Feb 12, 2010

The film belongs to Eastwood. Now looking increasingly like an Easter Island statue, he has a voice pickled in bourbon, a tongue like razor wire, and a body so full of shrapnel that he can't walk through airport metal detectors.

| Jun 24, 2006

Clint Eastwood is at his macho, insubordinate best in this exuberant, salty military movie with more memorable lines and funny moments than most comedies.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 15, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 30, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 14, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 17, 2003

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 30, 2003