Red Dawn

I saw this movie when I was in college in Colorado Springs, Colorado when it came out in 1984. Many people dismiss this movie at best as either a teen fantasy or at worse as a right-wing maniac's delusional vision of the future. Yes, it is a teen movie, but there's a bit more to it than that. I'm basically writing this for those of you who either weren't born or too young to remember those days. I grew up in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Anything mildly patriotic was regarded in bad taste. So when John Millius and his friends decided to make this patriotic teen movie about resistance fighters fighting invaders from the Evil Empire, he was just tapping into the frustration that many people (including myself) felt at that time. The scene I remember most vividly is the one when Patrick Swazye shoots the young Russian political officer in the Chevy Blazer. The audience consisted mostly of guys from nearby Fort Collins and Peterson AFB, and they gave this scene a standing ovation. In this post 11 September world, it's hard to imagine a time when, during the Cold War, flying the flag or loving your native land made many people think you were either a Nazi or a member of the John Birch Society. Now this film isn't "Seven Days in May" or "Fail-Safe." It's just a movie that was made at a time after we had lost a war and many in the world regarded the USA as a paper tiger. That's all.

Someone else before me wrote that a lot of people don't understand how believable this movie was in it's day. I have to agree with the author. I remember this movie as being pretty scary and pretty violent. I haven't seen it in a while but there's a lot of scenes that haunt me. One in particular is when several of the kids look for their parents at a concentration camp. Harry Dean Stanton gives a powerful performance that serves to show that he's a genuine actor. That scene is heartbreaking, as well as a scene that follows with Patrick Swayze breaking down in the snow covered woods. C. Thomas Howell vs. the helicopter. The ritual of the deer blood. Powers Boothe. The final battle and resolution. Yeah, it's a little much and these days, it wouldn't exactly fly but dammit Jim, I dug it at the time and I still do. I think everyone should see it, just so you can either remember or learn what it was like to live in a time when the general thinking was a little paranoid. I think the movie manages to capture at least that, being what it is, a paranoid fantasy of someone who probably has a huge gun collection in his concrete reinforced cellar. Rating: *** out of *****.

'Far Off Gone' is right on with that summary.

As a teen when this movie came out, us kids had grown up with Cold War news every night on TV. All these ICBMs being made, the 'Star Wars' defense initiative (SDI), even movies like 'War Games' contributed to a overall climate of concern about Russian/USA relations.

Then this movie hit theaters and us teens and younger adults felt we weren't so powerless after all. I can only speak for myself, but the opening scene was very sobering to a 18 year old kid who could relate to the dumbfounded kids in the classroom watching Soviet paratroopers hitting the schoolyard. I guess its one of those things where you had to be at the age and grown up in that era to really understand how the movie was received for its time.

The cast is chock full of stars in their younger years, and acting isn't bad either. Great movie and certainly worth watching at least once.

Anyone who has seen Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph Des Willens" (Triumph of the Will), the documentary about the Nuremburg Rallies, understands that even the vilest propaganda can attain the status of great art. Without a doubt, Nazism was a force to be despised and resisted, yet "Triumph" remains a fascinating, even great film.

That said, I will not put "Red Dawn" on the same plane as Riefenstahl's work. It is neither as good a film nor as vile propaganda. But it does underscore a point I see running through many of the criticisms of "Red Dawn" that have been posted here. Many of the movie's detractors reject the film out of hand because of its undeniably conservative overtones. This, I believe, is lazy criticism. The movie has an excellent pedigree. I suggest you search on ImDb under John Milius' name to see what other films he has been involved in. Some of his more notable accomplishments include the screenplays of "Jeremiah Johnson" and co-authoring "Apocalypse Now", as well as the notably UNconservative adaptation of "Clear and Present Danger". Basil Poledouris' score is fantastic, with its Copland-esque homages. The touches of authenticity in the film are also admirable, including the indoctrination camp (see the recently published "Gulag" or Koestler's "Darkness at Noon")and "Radio Free America" scenes, not to mention the efforts the filmmakers went to to make the military hardware look Russian (as opposed to Russians flying American aircraft in dismal movies like "Iron Eagle II" and "Rambo"). Yes, Red Dawn is propaganda, but just because it may be, from your perspective, the wrong kind of propaganda, you are not justified in invalidating the whole enterprise. It is slick, well-made, and memorable.

I've yet to see a serious review of John Milius' magnum opus, Red Dawn. For the most part, the liberal critics dismiss any discussion of its technical and dramatic strengths and instead focus entirely on the message. The thrust of complaints against Milius and Red Dawn amount to probably some of the most disingenuous criticisms in cinematic history. They critics argue that the audience should reject whatever Milius was trying to say (he's a conservative and board member of the NA) because the scenario is NOT REALISTIC and just a propaganda vehicle. I've always wondered how liberals, who draw the line at "it's bad" when it comes to understanding war, have the gall to judge the credulity of any piece in the genre.

My main objection with the Left's attack on "Red Dawn" is their refusal to acknowledge that Milius' focus on the Wolverines represents only a snapshot of a far larger, broader story the remains ever present in the background. When critics complain about how incredulous it is for the Soviets and their Latin allies to attack a small town in Colorado, they purposely misunderstand the message Milius explicitly delivered through the Wolverine's conversation with Col. Tanner--these kids are only a small set of actors in a much larger war.

It doesn't take that much of a mental exercise necessary to justify the period's well thought out belief that the Soviets could exploit their adventures in Latin America to invade the United States. Between Vietnam and the "nuclear freeze" movement, right before the Reagan build up, the West was essentially in retreat throughout the entire globe. Whether or not the Soviets could've succeeded in this gamble is another debate, but "Red Dawn" is a story of extraordinary times and circumstances albeit with careful attention to the real world.

Even so, the focus on the realism of Red Dawn's background story is an attempt to get away from the really other stunning aspects of the film. You may disagree with the conservative themes in this film, but one thing John Milius does very well is let his views flow naturally from the experiences of his characters and the realities of war. There is no Rush Limbaugh avatar reaching into the film to preach through Patrick Swayze or Harry Dean Stanton, something Aaron Sorkin can't help but injecting into the endless banter that has become staple to the "The West Wing."

The most clever critics realize that thematically Red Dawn is a success, so they go after the acting -- after all, that's where half of Milius' conservative propaganda is coming from. Yet more often than not they dismiss this important part of the film's success without a single attempt to specify their objections. You might ask what people should expect in the way of expressions and dialogue from high school kids who've been conditioned into guerillas , and I can't say that the kids in the "Lord of the Flies" featured the timely emoting that we see from say Swayze's character when they first arrive in the mountains. The terse, yet clearly emotional and meaningful chatter between the Wolverines is strikingly credible, and surpassed only by Harry Dean Stanton's powerful performance as a Midwestern blue collar thrown into a detention center and Ron O'Neal's slow yet well paced descent into disillusionment with his tiny slice of the war.

There's wide agreement that the cinematics were decent given the budget involved and the technology of the time. The art direction apparantly was so successful that two CIA case officers were alarmed by the attention to detail given to the T-72 main battle tank mock ups. Over all, Red Dawn maybe one of the most original, well done pieces from the 1980s.