Red Dawn heated up a lot of controversy between conservatives and liberals when it was released in 1984. Conservatives loved it, and liberals hated it. I’m pretty right wing (conservative), and I am willing to state that openly. Even so, I didn’t find Red Dawn all that amusing.
The film stars Patrick Swayze, as Jed Eckert, a high school senior living in Calumet, Colorado, flees into the woods with his brother Matt (Charlie Sheen) and friends Robert (C. Thomas Howell), Danny (Brad Savage) Aardvark (Doug Toby), Erica (Lea Thompson) and Toni (Jennifer Grey). Why? Well, its right in the middle of World War III and here’s what has happened. The Soviet Union has teamed up with Cuba, and Europe has fallen to the Soviets, while the Cubans take control of Central America. America and Britain hold out on their own. In a do or die effort, the Soviet Union invades Alaska and Canada, while the Cubans push up Mexico. They then invade the western side of the United States.
Anyway, the teens head out into the woods and survive by building shelters, and surviving off of food and water that they took at the last minute. They also have a few rifles and pistols that happened to be in Jed’s car. The bullets start flying when a patrol of Soviets enter the Arapaho Forest Area (the forest where they’re living in), and are all gunned down. The teens take their AK-47s, and launch a war against the occupying Soviets. Soon though, they realize that they can’t hold out forever, even as they became an inspiration to the citizens trapped in the Soviet’s grip.
Red Dawn is directed by John Milius. As a director, I didn’t find much worth in that spot for him, but I guess you could say he lights up the screen with guns and rocket launchers blazing.
As patriotic as Red Dawn may seem, it’s on the whole not that enjoyable. The teens even manage to take out a platoon of Soviet Spestnaz troops (highly trained Soviet Special Forces). It focuses on becoming a war tale of survival, a fight to the finish. It also tries to be entertaining in that way, but in that way, it also does not really succeed.
Even after these criticisms, Red Dawn was not a bad movie. Swayze, 31 years old at the time, really did look a lot older then a high school senior. Even so, he’s perfectly convince able as the leader of the teens who leads the rebellion.
In addition, the many shootouts are all pretty well staged, even though I find it unbelievable that none of the teens gets even wounded for the first three quarters of the movie.
What Red Dawn is known for is for being the first, official, PG-13 movie. At the time, it was the most violent movie to have ever come out. Hardly a minute goes by until we’re back to more shootings and killings. Today, the violence and atrocious has been far surpassed by more famous films like Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and the Patriot to name a few.
Overall, Red Dawn wasn’t bad. It had a so-so box-office run, but the actors weren’t really released to stardom. That being said, Red Dawn didn’t overly make a satisfying war picture.
***/5
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