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

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.

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.

...the far-from-enthralling feel is compounded by an almost total lack of interesting, three-dimensional periphery figures...