On R List of Movie Reviews

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Red Dawn (1984)

Rate: 8
Viewed: 9/10, 7/24

RedDawn
9/10: The most salient aspect of Red Dawn is the lack of restraint given the somewhat all-star cast.

As a matter of fact, no character is made to be the central focus. Rather, the movie is about guerrilla tactics and people's willingness to survive in a potential war with the Communists. At the beginning, I expected Toy Soldiers, but I didn't see the high level of violence coming.

A few things I love are the quick, dramatic opening scene of the Communist paratroopers, the grave situation sinking in everybody's head, and the moment when a Wolverine was labeled a traitor and got summarily dealt with.

If there's a gripe I have, it's just that everybody looks too good after a month...two months...three months... Hair doesn't tend to look neat and all nicely trimmed after living in the woods for so long. Are the filmmakers telling me they took regular showers to prepare for a model show?

Nonetheless, Red Dawn is a great survival picture that's made for fanatics who build bomb shelters and stockpile food and guns in order to get ready for an imminent nuclear holocaust that'll never happen. They need to get a grip on reality. Of course, the poster's tagline is pure bullshit: the United States had been invaded before plenty of times.

For anyone interested in some cinema history, it's Charlie Sheen's first feature film, and he'll have a movie moment with Jennifer Grey in Ferris Bueller's Day Off while she's eternally famous for Dirty Dancing with Patrick Swayze.

All in all, Red Dawn paints an interesting picture of what might happen if the Cold War had suddenly become reality.

7/24: I've raised my rating for Red Dawn from '7' to '8'.

It's not a bad "what if" movie that's set in the Cold War. You never know if it'll happen, but I find it hard to believe that the bad guys will land smack in the middle of the United States without being shot down by the initial defense. In the meantime, there's a lot of action that pulls no punches, but interestingly, as star-studded as the cast is, barely anybody has a memorable performance. If I were the guerrillas, I wouldn't spray paint "Wolverines" every time an attack occurred.

All in all, Red Dawn isn't about the cast but rather the concept that may or may not happen.