Heartbreak Ridge (1986)

US Marine Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway (Clint Eastwood) had been in the Corps since the 1950s and was nearing mandatory retirement.  Reassigned to Recon Marines, he found an undisciplined collection of dissolute Marines; Gunny Highway set to work forging them into an elite fighting force.  However, he had to contend with Major Powers (Everett McGill), a professional paper-pusher who disliked Highway's checkered past.  Then there was the issue of Tom's ex-wife, Aggie (Marsha Mason), who was dating a man who hated Marines.  Tom was reading women's magazines for relationship advice with a notion of getting back together.  At length, the invasion of Grenada in October 1983 tested his Marines and provided Highway with a final taste of combat before his retirement.

There are points when the movie shines and others when it drags.  There are some great bits.  One memorable one was that t-shirt matching during PT.  That the goal post seemed to move each time was fun.  Improvise, adapt, overcome.  Heck, I remember hearing that from friends in the Marines.  The battle in Grenada was surprisingly bland and included goofball A-Team silliness, such as driving a bulldozer (wow, handy that it is on the side of the road and available to the Marines) at an enemy machinegun position where the bullets ping against the raised blade.  Yeah.  But it wasn't raised high enough to cover the driver.  Lucky the Cubans didn't aim a little higher.  Well, this isn't a war movie, it's a dramedy?

Though the movie is set in 1983, the title refers to a battle fought during the Korean War (1950-53) by the US Army, not the Marines.  It is revealed that Highway won the Congressional Medal of Honor during the battle and that he had been in the Army at the time.  A thumbnail sketch of the battle is offered by Sergeant Major Choozoo (Arlen Dean Snyder), who was also a veteran of the battle.  Well, that's good to know.  Are there flashbacks?  No.  This is just to establish Highway's bona fides.

Just okay.

Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)

Civil War Veteran Hogan (Clint Eastwood) was riding through Mexico when he heard a commotion.  He dismounted and looked over a rise to see a trio of men pushing a mostly naked woman among them.  Well, that just wouldn't do.  He intervened by killing the trio.  He was quite shocked when, once she was dressed, she proved to be a nun!  Sister Sara (Shirley MacLaine) was also a Juarista out to raise money to fight the French.  As such, Hogan's plan of handing her off to a French patrol was nixed.  As it happens, Hogan was in Mexico to assist the Juarista cause, but he was less than keen on having a nun - especially a pretty nun - around.  The more time he spent around her, the less she seemed like a proper nun.  However, she always had a reasonable explanation for this aberrant behavior.

Clint plays his usual Western anti-hero, though he adds a dash of romance.  His interactions with Shirley are fun and funny.  Much of the fun is that Hogan doesn't know how to interact with her, nor can he get rid of her.  Though she plays her role well, Shirley is a hard sell for a Mexican.  She looks not at all Spanish and is entirely too pale for such a climate.  That said, Sara is a great character, and MacLaine imbues her with just the right combination of reverence and sass.

The scenery is terrific, but much of it is nowhere near the putative setting.  The story is set near Chihuahua, but a lot of filming was done south of Mexico City.  As for the French, they didn't look French.  According to IMDb, the director sought to save money and cast a bunch of no-names for all the roles other than Clint and Shirley.

After the US Civil War concluded, the United States took more robust measures against the French intervention in Mexico, selling tens of thousands of rifles to the Juaristas and threating US action against the French.  The movie Vera Cruz also took place during the French invasion of Mexico.

Good popcorn fun.

Unforgiven (1992)

In Big Whiskey, Wyoming, a cowboy had badly scarred a prostitute.  Where the prostitutes wanted the sheriff, Little Bill Dagget (Gene Hackman), to hang the two cowboys, he opted to have them pay restitution.  To the brothel owner, not the mutilated woman.  Infuriated, the women pooled their money to hire gunmen to kill the cowboys.

William Munny (Clint Eastwood) is a poor Kansas farmer with two kids.  His wife died nearly three years ago.  It is a hard life.  While trying to separate diseased pigs from healthy ones, a rider appears.  The Schofield Kid is off to collect a bounty in Wyoming.  He doesn't want to go alone.  Will was a terror in his younger days, a violent drunkard who killed without compunction.  "I'm not that man anymore," he explains, declining the offer.  However, he soon reconsiders and rides off to enlist his old buddy, Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman).  The pair find the Schofield Kid on the way to Wyoming.

English Bob (Richard Harris) is known as the Duke of Death, at least that is the title of the dime novel on his adventures in the West.  He arrives in Big Whiskey to collect the bounty but soon discovers an old acquaintance: Little Bill.  It is far from a happy reunion.

There are no heroes.  The Old West is a brutal place where self-interest outweighs all.  The tales told by Little Bill, Ned Logan, and William Munny paint a picture of violence and murder.  These are not good men, though they may be men of their time and place.

Recommended.

Coogan's Bluff (1968)

Arizona Deputy Sheriff Wyatt Coogan (Clint Eastwood) has once again annoyed the sheriff.  Irritated, the sheriff gave him the unenviable task of an extradition from New York.  Coogan arrives in New York City and immediately goes to the police station.  Lt. McElroy (Lee J. Cobb) explains that the prisoner was transferred to Bellevue Hospital and cannot be handed over until the DA & Judge approve.  Coogan is not impressed.  Viewing the paperwork as nonsense, he went to the hospital and bluffed his way into see the prisoner, James Ringerman (Don Stroud).  Claiming that everything has been approved, he convinced the doctor to release Ringerman to him.  On the way to the flight, one of Ringerman's associates clocked Coogan over the head.

Coogan woke up in the hospital with Lt. McElroy castigating him.  Arizona has taken him off the extradition and recalled him.  Unwilling to leave New York as a beaten man, Coogan set out to find Ringerman.  He was not completely without allies; he had met parole officer Julie Roth (Susan Clark).  Initially, he pursued her as a fling to kill time.  However, she was also a parole officer who had worked with a woman who was tied to Ringerman.

Coogan is a womanizer.  While bringing in a suspect in Arizona, he stopped to hook up with a woman; the suspect was left handcuffed on the porch.  In New York, he pursued Julie Roth and had a one-night stand with Linny Raven (Tisha Sterling).  With Julie, he was quite persistent.  She repeatedly declined his offers, but he would not take "no" as an answer.  To modern sensibilities, he was quite pushy.  Despite his bad behavior, she did warm to him, even going to the airport to see him off.

There was a character named Pushie, played by David Doyle (the original Bosley from Charlie's Angels).  It was odd to see him as an unsavory lowlife goon.

The funny thing about the movie is that it is all Coogan's fault.  His loose cannon behavior in Arizona resulted in his assignment to extradition.  His impatience and flouting the rules led to Ringerman's escape.  Once Ringerman is recaptured, Lt. McElroy offers the same DA & Judge spiel that he offered at the start.  This time, Coogan accepted those rules.

The helicopter flight to and from New York City was amazing.  I saw this film before but had forgotten the helicopter landing on the PanAm building.  For more than a decade, it was possible to fly directly from  LaGuardia Airport or JFK to the PanAm building and thus be downtown in 10 minutes.  In a way, it seems like 1968 had better air travel than today.

Speaking of 1968, this movie has plenty of hippies.  The Pidgeon-Toed Orange Peel Nightclub was peak 60's hippie culture in feel.  Linny Raven's apartment had a paint scheme that reminded one of Scooby Doo's Mystery Machine.

According to Quentin Tarantino, this movie became the template for action movies for the next 25 years.  It does have a very familiar feel to it.  Not great, but certainly entertaining.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)

A car arrives at a remote church in rural Montana.  The driver steps out and enters the church.  Upon seeing the preacher (Clint Eastwood), the driver pulls out a gun and starts shooting.  The preacher ducks, dodges, and runs for his life across a field.  Meanwhile, Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges) walks to a used car dealership and steals a white Pontiac Trans Am.  On the road, he almost runs over a preacher but swerves to instead hit a man with a gun.  The preacher climbs into the car and the pair speed away.  Over the next few days, they become friends.  The preacher admits to being Thunderbolt, a notorious bank robber.  The man who was trying to kill him had been in on the heist and believed he had been cheated.  The same was true for both Red Leary (George Kennedy) and Eddie Goody (Geoffrey Lewis), who have been pursuing the pair through Montana.  Eventually, Leary and Goody get the drop on Thunderbolt, but he explains that he did not cheat them.  With the money from their previous job gone, the four decide to pull a new job.

The first half of the movie is a series of random scenes that don't advance the plot.  It's a buddy road show that is regularly interrupted by a storm of bullets from the murderous Red.  Early in the movie, Lightfoot woos Catherine Bach - who would later gain fame as Daisy Duke on the Dukes of Hazzard - but she vanishes from the movie in the next scene.  Gary Busey has a brief bit as a sprinkler installer.  Only the main four actors have a role of any note, everyone else getting little more than cameo parts.  It is a random patchwork of a movie that often doesn't feel like it is going anywhere.  What was the point of catching a ride with the crazy man who had a racoon in the front seat and a score of rabbits in the trunk?  Why the woman standing naked in the window while Lightfoot is working on the yard?  How did Red keep finding them?  You would think he had a tracker on them, but this is 1973!

Jeff Bridges is quite good as a full of himself youth, often stealing scenes with his infectious charm.  He makes an excellent foil for Clint's seen-it-all veteran.  The antagonism between Bridges and George Kennedy is quite well-done.  Really, the chemistry among the principals is very good and is the strong point of the movie.

Overall, it is just okay.  

The Dirty Harry Series

Dirty Harry (1971): The movie opens with a faceless sniper killing a woman swimming in a rooftop pool.  Inspector Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) gets the case.  The killer, who calls himself Scorpio, left a note in which he demands a ransom to stop his killing spree.  Using clues in the note and a helicopter sighting, Harry and his new partner, Chico Gonzalez (Reni Santoni), sit in wait to ambush the assassin.  Though they spot him, he escapes.  Scorpio kidnaps a teenaged girl and buries her; give him the ransom or she suffocates.  The mayor is eager to just pay the ransom and Harry is picked to deliver it.  He runs around the city to satisfy Scorpio that he isn't being followed.  Disarmed and isolated, it looks like Harry is about to become the latest victim but then Chico arrives.  Though Scorpio (Andrew Robinson) escapes again, he's wounded and Harry tracks him to his lair, where he 'extracts' the location of the missing girl.  Thanks to his excessive force, Scorpio is released from custody.  The movie has the clear message that courts are too lenient on offenders while ignoring their victims.  Paul Newman turned down the part as too right-wing for him.  Of particular note, Harry uses a .44 magnum revolver.  This is his signature gun and helps define the character.  Great film and highly recommended.

Magnum Force (1973): Carmine Ricca has just left court, escaping a murder conviction on a technicality.  He's hardly left downtown San Francisco than he is pulled over by a motorcycle cop.  The cop kills everyone in the car and rides off.  Harry stops by the crime scene with his partner, Early Smith (Felton Perry), but it's not his case.  Lt. Briggs (Hal Holbrook) admonishes him about abandoning his stakeout.  Further killings by a motorcycle cop lead Harry to believe his old pal, Charlie McCoy (Mitchell Ryan), might be the killer.  Charlie is recently divorced and his ex-wife says he's suicidal.  But then Charlie is found dead.  While at the range one night, Harry meets four rookie cops who are surprisingly good shots.  Davis (David Soul) is the leader and best shot.  It is soon clear that the four rookies are operating as a death squad, killing criminals who escape justice.  They try to recruit Harry but he declines.  Where the last movie decried the justice system, this one defends it as the best we have.  Harry is no vigilante and doesn't approve of them.  Thanks to his role in this movie, David Soul was soon after cast in Starsky and Hutch.  Robert Urich, who appeared as one of the rookies, went on to Vegas.  This is probably the best Dirty Harry movie.

The Enforcer (1976): Two men in a gas company truck are lured to a remote cabin by a hot blonde.  They have hardly arrived before Bobby Maxwell (DeVeren Bookwalter) kills them.  He and his small band call themselves the People's Revolutionary Strike Force (PRSF).  Meanwhile, Harry and DiGeorgio (John Mitchum) respond to a hostage situation at a botched robbery.  Harry drives his car into the building and shoots the robbers.  This does not endear him to Captain McKay.  He is reassigned to personnel.  One of the applicants for promotion to inspector is Kate Moore (Tyne Daly).  Harry is horrified that she has never made an arrest and views her as unqualified.  The PRSF use the gas truck to bluff their way into a weapons depot where they start loading M-16s, explosives, and even LAW rockets into the truck.  Thanks to the heist, Harry is back in homicide and has a new partner, Inspector Kate Moore!  The PRSF use their hardware to kidnap the mayor and then demand a ransom.  Harry and Kate track them to Alcatraz and rescue the mayor while killing all the members of the PRSF.  It is now standard that Harry's partner is toast.  Chico was shot in the first movie and decided to leave the force.  Early was killed by a bomb.  Moore follows the pattern, not surviving the film.  Of note, her appearance here led to her role in Cagney and Lacey.   There are stand-ins for the Black Panthers and the Symbionese Liberation Army, echoing events of the era.  Thanks to the death of DiGeorgio, John Mitchum marked his 3rd and final appearance in the series.  Overall, this one is a bit weak on account of the finale.  Why are just Harry and Kate headed to Alcatraz?  Mostly good and definitely recommended.

Sudden Impact (1983): A couple are making out on a remote overlook of San Francisco Bay.  Suddenly, the woman shoots the man, once in the crotch and once in the head.  Ten years earlier, Jennifer Spencer (Sondra Locke) and her sister were raped in San Paulo; she is now out for vengeance. Callahan is assigned the investigation and learns the dead man hails from San Paulo.  Thanks to multiple high-profile shootouts and destroyed police vehicles, Harry is banished to San Paulo.  The local police chief (Pat Hingle) gives him a cold reception.  Their relationship grows more strained when a local man is found dead, one bullet to his crotch and one to his head.  It is soon clear to the rapists that Jennifer has returned to make them pay.  Despite that, she takes out a couple more of them.  By then, Harry has figured out that she is the murderer.  However, the last of the rapists has turned the tables and now Jennifer must run for her life on the very beach where she was raped.  A very different Dirty Harry film, this is Jennifer's story.  To give Harry some action, he is pursued by mafia assassins and released criminals.  He also gets a new gun: a .44 AutoMag.  And he has a dog named Meathead.  Harry seems a bit of a caricature of himself with the tacked on action scenes, some of which unfold awkwardly.  Bad guys stand around while Harry monologues and then he somehow gets the drop on them.  This marks the last appearance of Sondra Locke with Clint Eastwood.  She had been a regular in his films since the Outlaw Josey Wales (1976).  This also marked the 4th and final appearance of Albert Popwell.  Popwell played a different character in each movie, dying in two of them.  The best thing about this installment was the catch phrase: Make my day!

The Dead Pool (1988): Johnny Squares (Jim Carrey) has died of an overdose on the film set of Hotel Satan, Peter Swan's (Liam Neeson) latest horror film.  Harry and his new partner, Al Quan (Evan Kim), are called upon to check for foul play.  While there, Callahan has a run-in with Samantha Walker (Patricia Clarkson), a news reporter who soon becomes Harry's love interest.  Though Swan was not initially a suspect in Johnny Squares' death, the revelation of a dead pool in which Swan had selected Squares puts him in the crosshairs.  Harry also happens to be on Swan's list.  As more victims on Swan's list die, it looks like he might be rigging the pool.  However, he is cleared and the focus turns to a scorned fan.  Discovering that his plot to frame Swan has failed, the fan pencils Samantha Walker onto the list and lures her to an exclusive interview.  Will Harry arrive in time to save the day?  The weakest of the series, this is just an excuse to get Harry back in action.  As with the last film, he's marked for death by some random crime lord and must gun down countless goons that have nothing to do with the central storyline.  Also echoing Sudden Impact, a band of criminals who have already killed a restaurant patron stand motionless while Harry delivers a monologue before gunning them down.  Of note, Guns N' Roses band members have cameos and the song "Welcome to the Jungle" is part of the sound track.

Sully

The movie opens the morning after the crash in the Hudson River.  Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) awakens from a nightmare of crashing his plane into a building.  Soon thereafter, he has a meeting with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is standard after all crashes.  Though Sully is celebrated in the press as a hero for having successfully landed the disabled airplane in the Hudson River, the NTSB proves to be less impressed and think he needless ditched the aircraft.  Computer models show that he could have made it back to LaGuardia.

I had expected a movie that opened with a bunch of people boarding a plane followed by a dramatized crash and rescue, and then maybe the aftermath; the usual disaster movie stuff.  This is more of an after action report that reconstructs the events.  The contentious NTSB turns this into something of a court drama with Sully trying to save his career and reputation.  The real NTSB is disappointed by the negative and inaccurate characterization of them in the film.  The movie is a character study, a mini biography, of Sully in the wake of the crash and one cannot but be impressed.

 

Great movie and thumbs up!