How Long Is “Heartbreak Ridge”?

Action drama in which an old Vietnam veteran who is disillusioned with the hi-tech, by-the-book modern military, requests a posting to his old unit to see out his soldiering days. Tough and foul-mouthed, the marine sergeant puts a squadron of lazy young recruits through their paces, turning them into a well disciplined fighting unit - just in time for a hazardous rescue mission to the small Caribbean island of Grenada, Having spent much of his directorial career emulating Don Siegel and John Ford, Clint Eastwood borrows a page from the catalogue of Sam Fuller in Heartbreak Ridge. Eastwood casts himself as an old-fashioned Marine Corps sergeant who is out of step with the new-fashioned military. He returns to his old outfit as a gunnery sergeant, where he runs afoul of 1980s-style superior officers to whom the words "Gung Ho" are foolish anachronisms. But through his tough tutelage, Eastwood's lackadaisical platoon is whipped into a first-rate fighting machine, favoring teamwork over such New Age gobbledygook as "self-fulfillment." Eastwood's men prove their mettle during the invasion of Grenada.