Red Dawn

Rating:
Summary: Worst movie on earth
Review: No word on earth would describe the stupidity of this movie in a sufficient manner.

Rating:
Summary: A classic movie with some talented but inexperianced stars
Review: Red Dawn has been repeatedly slammed by rabid left-wing ideologues as being unrealistic for several reasons; some of which the reviewers make either take out of context or flat out make up.

"...amazingly they hold off an entire division of russian troops..."

There was nothing in the movie implied or otherwise to indicate the town was taken by a Division. A soviet Division in the 1980's was smaller than a US Division but it still consisted of a few thousand men. A best this was a battalion.

"...I can recall other cornball lines about "600 million screaming chinamen" and "I got 7 Migs but the eighth got me."

Actually what he said was, "It was 5 to 1, I got 4." That is not a cornball line. Ask anyone that has been in or around an aviation unit, that's standard bravado you would expect from any pilot. It was extremely realistic dialogue.

"Here's the plot: Godless, murderous, commie Cuban paratroopers invade a Western farming community during WWIII in order to machine gun a history teacher,"

Ummm...no. The "Godless, murderous, commie Cuban paratroopers" along with the soviets invaded America, the movie takes place in a western farming community (and surrounding area). I guess if your too stupid to have caught the entire background story you could think that it was just that...I suppose.

" An America foolish enough to be invaded and taken over as happens in the movie (only to be rescued by a group of high school athletes...) deserves whatever happens to it."

Foolish enough? Were Czechoslovakia, Hungry, Afghanistan, etc. invaded by the soviets because they were foolish? Did Hitler invade Poland because it was foolish? Did the Japanese invade Pearl Harbor because the US was foolish? Was that the reason? Not sure I understand the logic of that comment. The maker of that comment shows a strong ignorance of history and geopolitics, and a lack of common sense.

"...there hasn't been a piece of neo-fascist agitprop this psychotic or lame brained since jack webb. the dialog is cliched tripe, the dramatic structure is crude and forced, and the acting is hopeless."

I will confess, I looked up agitprop. I was familiar with the word but it seemed out of context with the sentence its used in. having read the definition I laughed at the irony;
ag·it·prop (noun) Political propaganda, especially favoring communism and disseminated through literature, drama, art, or music.

"...bombastic patriotism..." "...the unabashed patriotism..." "...over-patriotic..."

Since when did patriotism become a dirty word?

Well, I could go on but I suspect most will have stopped reading this by now so Id be talking to myself. I will sum up by saying Red Dawn was an excellent action movie given the limited budget. It has some first rate young actors that showed a lack of experience (hence the reviews that they were 'wooden') but great raw talent that developed as they gained experience.

Rating:
Summary: Adolescent period piece is fun to watch
Review: "Red Dawn" is a historical artifact from the fun-filled carefree days of the first Reagan administration, which pounded out the message that the Asiatic communist hordes were stomping around just over the border in Central America, and the Soviet Union's bigger and better military machine was champing at the bit to take on the USA. This war talk scared most of conventional Hollywood, which responded with anti-nuclear war movies such as "Testament" and "The Day After." Listening to the White House in those days, it seemed that Reagan's steady hand over the Big Button was all that kept the godless Red Menace from smashing Our American Way Of Life.

The "Soviet Menace" was, in hindsight, a lot of overblown hooey, and we now know (and probably should have known then) that the Soviet military was a large, rusting junkpile that even then was being bested by American financed Afghan mullahs, which later morphed into the Taliban. "Red Dawn"s premise of a Soviet-Cuban-Nicaraguan surprise attack on the United States, and occupation, was, and is, bogus. On this point alone, "Red Dawn" should earn a single star.

But I have a soft spot for "Red Dawn", because director John Milius, propagandist extraordinary (see "Wind and the Lion"), has captured an improbable adolescent fantasy and turned it into a reasonably tight, action-filled adventure. The plot is absurd, but what red-blooded American teenager growing up in the 50s and 60s didn't fantasize about taking to the hills and fighting Nazi/Red Chinese/Soviet invaders? And how many kids, as I did, dreamed of being rescued from the algebra final by rampaging Soviet paratroopers, which opens "Red Dawn"? C'mon, be honest. Milius, whatever his political bent, is a good storyteller, the actors are earnest, and the action keeps the movie rolling.

The movie follows small town high school football hero Jed Eckert (Patrick Swayze), his brother Matt (Charlie Sheen (pre-"Platoon")) and his band of teen-age guerillas to resist the Soviet occupation of Colorado in the early days of World War Three. Is that really Swayze's dance partner from "Dirty Dancing," Jennifer Gray, buried under that rumpled Army jacket? What a country. No wonder the Russians lose. The "Wolverines" are joined by an Air Force pilot (Powers Boothe), who patiently explains how the Ruskees caught us with our pants down and cleaned out half the country.

"Red Dawn" is borderline camp. Harry Dean Stanton, perennial desert rat and the father to one of the Wolverines, gets the best line of the movie, "Avenge me!" just before a line of American civilians singing off-key patriotic hymns get the Kalyshnikov treatment. The Russians, who have managed to skunk NORAD and America's best and brightest military minds in their surprise attack, are fundamentally stupid and boorish up close and personal. Milius likes his action black and white, and heck, why not.

It's a fine family movie. The violence is not too gory, no nudity, no sex and not much bad language. Just remind the kids, it's just a fantasy flick, and nothing more. My only troubling concern is, based on some of the reviews, there are people who are still taking this film seriously as some kind of patriotic statement. The irony is that there were real teen-age Wolverines, only they were the thousands of Russian high-school partisans who died fighting the Nazis behind the lines in the woods and marshes during WW2. <...

Rating:
Summary: Still a good movie after all these years...
Review: If you can just get past initial political knee-jerk reactions (for or against gun control, etc.) to the premise of this movie, you begin to realize it's actually an excellently written and well-acted story, something some grumpy lefties maybe have trouble seeing. Far from being a propagandist motion-poster, the characters, from both sides of the struggle, are presented not as extreme caricatures, but as some-are-good- and some-are-bad and some-are-in-between. This movie holds a fascination for me that I just can't seem to shake. A gripping story, and great viewing!

Rating:
Summary: Here's my two cents, never to be seen again
Review: Good movie. Semi-realalistic plot with decent acting. I liked how the KGB used gun regestration forms to round up gun owners. I didn't like the writer(s) portryal of the Boy Scouts.

Rating:
Summary: Lost a lot
Review: Like many, I remembered this as a cool movie. It's funny what we liked as teenagers in the 80s. It could've been a better movie with a slower, more developed beginning. The movie gets points for fairly successful drama, but lack of character development at the start and throughout the movie seriously dulls it. It also gets points for varied locales, from deserts to pine forests to snowscapes. Ultimately, it's hard to care for the characters or even the cause. I'm realizing that I liked it as a kid because it was voilent and every American boy's fantasy. Neither lure holds up for me today like it used to, much like the movie as a whole.

Rating:
Summary: Not just right-wing prop
Review: Most reviews for this film focus on the conservative values in the message, and the improbability of the events taking place. Neither is important.

This is not a pro-war film
1) Remember, Jed didn't want to fight at first. He new his family would want him to remain safe and hidden. He only fought, and led his friends and brother into fighting AFTER his family was murdered.

2) The dialog never focuses on the "killing those commie bastards". The message is that Jed and team "live here" and that's what drove them to their actions, they didn't invade Russia, right?

3) There is as much focus on the Cuban officer's conflicts about war and reasons for being involved. Remember he had the opportunity to kill matt and Jed at the end of the film and didn't. And that sappy part just before Matt and Jed attack at the end of the film where he is reminiscing about better times.

Films don't have to be realistic to make a point. Who cares if the likely-hood of this happening is unrealistic? Who cares if the United States has ever been invaded and the line extending through Colorado is unlikely (although the colonel explained the line worked it's way north after months of fighting, over the grill just after he joined the wolverines.)

Films can be whatever the hell they want, to express any point they like. Simplifying this film to a pro-war, pro-arms, right-wing prop piece is too simple, and really, unfortunate.

I think the bottom line message is that war is terrible. The most interesting take away from the film, especially given the current situation in Iraq where American troops are being retaliated against, is that it tells a very common and very modern story from an uncommon perspective. Our nation has inflicted the kind of hurt represented in this film many times. Guerrilla rebellion, much like that in Iraq, has happened before. Maybe this film can help us to speculate the "what if"? Maybe it can help us understand why people fight back when they have nothing to lose and their families have been lost. Maybe it can help us better understand the role of the aggressor in the many conflicts our nation participates in.

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Rating:
Summary: worst movie of the 80's.
Review: Wow this movie is so dumb, where do I start? Theres no way the USSR and Cuba could have invaded the US. Contrary to what some [people] say, the reason the continental US were never invaded were threefold:

1) The lack of a land route, since the US was shielded by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

2) No nation (such as Japan, Nazi Germany, USSR) had the naval or air transport capability to invade the US.

3) The US was the first nation to have nuclear weapons. An invasion force off the coast of the US would soon be turned into a group of sinking, burning, radioactive scrap piles.

This movie is so full of plot holes it is just hilarious. The high school kids build big bonfires on the sides of the mountain. Don't the commies have any recon aircraft? And the scene where they ambush and drive off a force of Spetsnaz? Right.
I'm sure that would happen in real life.
The action scenes are actually not bad for a cheap 80's movie. But overall the poor directing, poor acting and the overall rightwing bias of the script show this movie for what it is... And a bad one at that.

Rating:
Summary: Great 1980's Patriotic Film
Review: As someone who graduated from high school in 1984 I can tell you most in my generation loved this movie! It featured a great cast of rising stars and plenty of action. The cold war was at it's heighth and it sent a reassuring message that American bravery would win out over the commies!!! Red blooded Americans will love it...left-wingers will cringe and go watch a Warren Beatty film.

Rating:
Summary: Great entertainment--a Cold War cautionary tale
Review: "Red Dawn" made its debut in the latter days of the Cold War, and is reflective of the fears and anxieties as regards the Soviets that characterized the times. For that reason, it was a controversial movie. Liberals and Leftists detested "Red Dawn" while conservatives loved it.

Red Dawn has its flaws. The acting (other than by Patrick Swayze) is not first rate, and the storyline is somewhat murky. On the other hand the special effects are pretty good, and the Soviet troops and equipment look authentically Soviet. The basic premise, I thought, was very entertaining--the Soviet bloc makes an actual surprise attack and ground invasion of the United States, which it partially occupies. The local high school kids form a partisan resistance movement which is suprisingly successful and effective. (Yes, this may be unrealistic, but who is to say?). While the acting is not brilliant, it is largely serviceable. It is a fact that this movie is unabashedly anti-Soviet. I guess critics can always go see Warren Beatty in "Reds."

In the final analysis this film succeeds for the reason that any movie succeeds--it entertains. It holds the viewer's interest. The movie will always be an entertaining reminder of how dreadful the Cold War was, and how grateful we should be that it ended successfully.