Poster

Heartbreak Ridge

Year

1986

Genre

Action, Comedy, Drama, War

Country

USA

Director

Writer

James Carabatsos

Actors

Marsha Mason, Everett McGill, Moses Gunn, Eileen Heckart, Bo Svenson, Boyd Gaines, Mario Van Peebles, Arlen Dean Snyder, Vincent Irizarry, Ramón Franco, Tom Villard, Mike Gomez, Rodney Hill, Peter Koch

Description

1983. Tom Highway is a well-decorated career military man in the United States Marine Corps, he who has seen action in Korea and Vietnam. His current rank is Gunnery Sergeant. His experiences have led him to become an opinionated, no nonsense man, who is prone to bursts of violence, especially when he's drunk, if the situation does not suit him, regardless of the specifics or people involved. Because of these actions, he has spent his fair share of overnighters behind bars. Close to retirement, one of his last assignments, one he requested, is back at his old unit at Cherry Point, North Carolina, from where he was transferred for insubordination. He is to train a reconnaissance platoon. His superior officer, the much younger and combat inexperienced Major Malcolm Powers, sees Highway as a relic of an old styled military. Highway's commanding officer, Lieutenant Ring, the platoon leader, is also a younger man who has no combat experience, but is academically inclined and happy-go-lucky. Highway finds that his team is a rag-tag bunch of slackers, who includes wannabe rock musician Stitch Jones, with who Highway had an inauspicious earlier meeting. The men in the platoon, who truly believe Highway is crazy, hate him, and don't understand why they have to follow his harsh training regimen when the United States is not currently at war. The major, who is all about efficiency regardless of combat readiness, has the same views of Highway. He is clear that he sees Highway's platoon solely as a training mechanism for his own elite squad trained by Highway's nemesis, Staff Sergeant Webster. Things for Highway and his platoon change when the United States enters into war in Grenada. Through it all, Highway tries to reconnect with his bar waitress ex-wife Aggie, he even clandestinely reading women's magazines to understand her better. Two primary obstacles stand in his way: Roy Jennings, Aggie's boss and current suitor who hates Marines, and Aggie's own remembrance of how dysfunctional their marriage was. ------- Sergeant Tom Highway, a hardened, tough veteran of Korea and Vietnam returns to the United States for his last tour of duty with the U.S. Marine Corps. He is assigned to training a recon unit. Their cool, trendy and 'hippy' approach to military life is a reminder to him that he is, in the words of his commanding officer, a major, "an anachronism" - useful only "in case of war". Conveniently, a war does arise (the invasion of Grenada in October, 1983) and successfully tests both his usefulness and the effectiveness of the new recruits. ------- Marine Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway has been in the Corps since the Korean War and would like to see some action and a victory before he retires. He requests to be transfered to the unit that he was once busted out of. Upon arriving the commanding officer knows of Highway's reputation, especially of his lack of respect for his superiors, warns him that he is going to keep an eye on him. Highway's assigned to train a recon unit which consists mostly of deadbeats. But Highway's determined to turn them into true marines and they are not exactly pleased with him, at first. And he is also trying to reconnect with his ex-wife.

Comments

Duration

125 minutes (at 25 frames per second)

Filesize

1495 MB

Video

DivX 5 - resolution: 640x352

Audio