Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Clint Eastwood | ... | Gunnery Sergent Thomas Highway | |
Marsha Mason | ... | Aggie | |
Everett McGill | ... | Major Malcolm Powers | |
Moses Gunn | ... | Staff Sgt. Webster | |
Eileen Heckart | ... | Little Mary | |
Bo Svenson | ... | Roy Jennings | |
Boyd Gaines | ... | Lieutenant Ring | |
Mario Van Peebles | ... | Corporal Stitch Jones | |
Arlen Dean Snyder | ... | Sergeant Major Choozoo | |
Vincent Irizarry | ... | Fragetti | |
Ramón Franco | ... | Aponte (as Ramon Franco) | |
Tom Villard | ... | Profile | |
Mike Gomez | ... | Quinones | |
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Rodney Hill | ... | Collins |
Peter Koch | ... | 'Swede' Johanson |
1983. Tom Highway is a well-decorated career military man in the United States Marine Corps, he who has seen action in Korea and Vietnam. His current rank is Gunnery Sergeant. His experiences have led him to become an opinionated, no nonsense man, who is prone to bursts of violence, especially when he's drunk, if the situation does not suit him, regardless of the specifics or people involved. Because of these actions, he has spent his fair share of overnighters behind bars. Close to retirement, one of his last assignments, one he requested, is back at his old unit at Cherry Point, North Carolina, from where he was transferred for insubordination. He is to train a reconnaissance platoon. His superior officer, the much younger and combat inexperienced Major Malcolm Powers, sees Highway as a relic of an old styled military. Highway's commanding officer, Lieutenant Ring, the platoon leader, is also a younger man who has no combat experience, but is academically inclined and happy-go-lucky... Written by Huggo
Among my husband and his buddies, this movie is like Shakespeare -- they quote from it often and well, so often and well, in fact, that the quotes are just part of their vocabulary and the source is forgotten. It does have more than its share of witty quips, even for me, a lowly female ;).
I really do like this movie. It makes me miss the 80's, when it was still considered acceptable to be a patriotic American, and movies that glorified America and the military could be made without the felt need to apologize left and right. And of course Clint Eastwood is clever and attractive as always, as the hardcore Marine lifer who's trying to discover his tender side in time to reunite with his ex when he retires.