BEFORE: Everett McGill carries over from "The Straight Story", where he had a small but memorable role as a used tractor salesman. Seems like he might have a bigger role in today's film, which counts as my Memorial Day programming. I've done many war movies before, covering everything from World War I to our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I seem to be running out of them at the moment - I suppose I do have "Churchill", and they've started running "Dunkirk" on premium cable, but I don't have "Darkest Hour" yet, and those three films sort of work as a set, right?
Which leaves me with this film about the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983. If you don't recall that incident, it's not surprising. Even at the time it felt like a minor blip on history's radar - I was 16 at the time and I paid a little bit of attention to it because of how close I was to potential draft age, and I hoped that this action didn't turn into a war that dragged on for 2 years and then caused the U.S. to re-institute the draft. Then I might have been in some trouble, although I didn't much like the chances of any army that needed to resort to sending me into combat. (Look, the military wouldn't have wanted me anyway, I can't swim, I can't jump out of a plane, and there's no way I could have done a 10-mile run, so to the relief of both me AND my mother, even if I had been called to serve, my body type and lifestyle choices virtually guaranteed my rejection.)
In the end, some U.S. medical students that were in no danger of being held hostage were rescued, and several dozen U.S. military platoons were mildly inconvenienced for a couple of days, and the U.S. gave out a few thousand medals, patted itself on the back, and got in some good military practice time. Look it up on Wikipedia if you've never heard of it.
THE PLOT: A hard-nosed, hard-living Marine gunnery sergeant clashes with his superiors and his ex-wife as he takes command of a spoiled recon platoon with a bad attitude.
AFTER: This is the story of a lifetime military man, who never got advanced in the ranks as he maybe should have. Perhaps it was his "hard-living" or maybe it was his disdain for authority. Either way, this character, Sgt. Highway, served in Korea and three tours in Vietnam, and then finds himself close to mandatory retirement, with a record of (his words) 0-1-1. Apparently Korea was a tie and Vietnam was a loss, and he'd like to go out on a win. And that sets up and explains Grenada, more or less - our military was desperate for a win, so they picked an opponent they could definitely handle.
But there's a clash of wills between Highway and his superior (played by Everett McGill), the latter of whom has never seen combat. So he's definitely a by-the-book guy, because it's all theoretical, so without the experience, he falls back only on his training. Highway, on the other hand, places more emphasis on adapting to situations and coming up with creative solutions, as a man under fire might be forced to do. If you're not winning the game, change the rules. If there's an obstacle, you go over, under or around it, and you don't quit, no matter what.
For some reason, he transfers back to a unit that he was kicked out of years before, because he still has some kind of score to settle. This not only puts him back in touch with his ex-wife, who works as a waitress in the local bar near the base, but also raises the possibility that he could see combat again, and he's put in charge of a recon platoon that the rest of the Marine base treats like cannon fodder. Nevertheless, he feels the need to whip them into shape and make real Marines out of them - it's like he knew we were going to invade Grenada or something.
I suppose it's a generational thing, a difference in the way that the older folks look at the world, and then you have the younger Marines, who feel like rejects from a "Porky's"-like military comedy. One wonders if this whole film is Eastwood's answer to a movie like "Stripes", released just five years before, where Bill Murray's platoon is also a bunch of rejects and losers, and also got whipped into shape, but with comic results. Or perhaps this is all Eastwood's take on the younger generation of actors around 1986, who clearly didn't take war movies as seriously as he did.
Of course we should take a moment or twelve on Memorial Day to think about those who sacrificed their lives in service of our country. But in order to have some balance, after learning about the Pentagon Papers, I also feel the need to think about how terrible it is that so many died in wars that dragged on too long, or didn't need to happen in the first place. Of course World War II had to happen, to stop the spread of fascism in Europe, but ever since then, things have been a whole lot murkier. Four presidents prolonged our involvement in Vietnam because none of them wanted to appear "weak" by giving up. And that's dangerous, giving one man the power to place his own self-image and his position in history above the lives of numerous soldiers. And then the situation repeated itself with Gulf War II (now with more Afghanistan) because neither Obama or Trump wanted to end it and similarly look weak. Isn't it possible that the whole thing started as an ego boost for Bush II/Cheney in the first place? Or a reaction to 9/11 that didn't end up solving that non-specific problem?
What happens when Trump starts to see sagging polls and wants to guarantee himself another term? He'll start another war, mark my words, or at least keep the ones we're in now going, long after they've proven pointless. Because there's some unwritten rule that you can't change Presidents during a war, it wouldn't be prudent. The only people that like sequels more than Hollywood producers are in the U.S. military, so if we ever get our troops out of Iraq & Afghanistan, you can all look forward to Korea II. They've been circling around it in the news for so long now, it's almost getting more hype than the latest "Avengers" film did.
Also starring Clint Eastwood (last seen in "Tarantula"), Marsha Mason (last seen in "The Cheap Detective"), Moses Gunn (last seen in "Rollerball"), Bo Svenson (last seen in "The Great Waldo Pepper"), Eileen Heckart (last seen in "Somebody Up There Likes Me"), Boyd Gaines (last seen in "Fame"), Mario Van Peebles (last seen in "The Cotton Club"), Arlen Dean Snyder (last seen in "Internal Affairs"), Vincent Irizarry, Ramon Franco, Tom Villard, Mike Gomez, Rodney Hill, Peter Koch, Richard Venture (last seen in "Missing"), Peter Jason (last seen in "Hail, Caesar!"), John Hostetter, Thom Sharp.
RATING: 5 out of 10 Cuban cigars
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