Top Gunner Heartbreak Ridge

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

"You ought to be sealed in a case labeled 'Break open only in case of war.' " So sneers the CO as he welcomes Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway (Clint Eastwood) to his latest assignment in a career that stretches from Korea in Tom's distinguished past to Grenada in the near future. But it is the assignment Highway wanted: top kick of a reconnaissance platoon in dire need of the kind of training only he can provide.

Have you met this character before? The Medal of Honor winner who can outdrink, outbrawl and outcuss any other man in the joint? Of course you have. Have you consorted with his unit before, an ill assortment of the flaky, the surly and the klutzy? Naturally. And do you just somehow know that before the picture is over the sergeant will weld them into a first-class fighting unit, in the process winning their unswerving loyalty and affection? You do just somehow know.

We are in the realm of genre moviemaking here. But nobody does that with greater conviction, energy and unpatron-izing affection for the grand old forms than Eastwood. He also knows that by grounding his work with a few simple ironies, he can humanize his basic screen character, that of the dutiful loner, and separate it from upstarts like "Sly" Stallone and Chuck Norris. The sergeant's swearing, for example, is well beyond the grunting demands of realism; it is an aria of obscenities and more a commentary on macho posturing than an assertion of it. Same thing with the women's magazines he reads. See, he hopes to re-up with his ex-wife (Marsha Mason, full of fire and ire) and thinks maybe a little secondhand psychobabble ("Did we mutually nurture each other?") will do the job. It's funny, and makes his toughness all the tougher. Heartbreak Ridge is not great Eastwood, but it will tide us over until the next Bronco Billy or Tightrope swaggers into view.