Heartbreak Ridge

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.