Red Dawn (1984)

Director: John Milius                                     Writers: John Milius & Kevin Reynolds
Film Score: Basil Poledouris                          Cinematography: Ric Waite
Starring: Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson and Jennifer Gray

For me, one of the things that detracts from a lot of eighties films is a lack of realism. Many of them somehow look like TV movies. And while that’s somewhat the case with the original version of Red Dawn, it’s still a very nice piece of work. The actors, as callow as they may have been, all turn in some powerful performances that make this film a pleasure to watch. The production no doubt benefits from the presence of the great John Milius not only behind the camera but in shaping the screenplay. He had worked on the early Dirty Harry films as well as Coppola’s Apocalypse Now while his writing partner, Kevin Reynolds, would go on to direct Robin Hood and Waterworld for Kevin Costner, as well as a fine version of The Count of Monte Cristo.

The film is about the impossible scenario of a conventional military action against the United States. On a football field in Colorado, paratroopers land and begin taking over a small town, which sends a group of teenagers into the woods with their family guns as protection. Apparently the Cubans, with Russian backing, came up through Texas with air support in the Rockies, and ground strikes through Canada. But with no way to occupy the entire country, the west coast still remains unoccupied. Patrick Swayze and his brother Charlie Sheen are the leaders of the group of kids who form a resistance group called The Wolverines, after their high school mascot. It’s not until downed fighter pilot Powers Boothe arrives that the partisans get organized and begin really hurting the Russo-Cuban alliance. But with increased military presence comes casualties that the kids are not prepared for.

Patrick Swayze, whom I’ve never really liked, does a credible job as the leader of the group. Sheen does a nice job also, in a supporting role. C. Thomas Howell is the meek friend who becomes so full of hatred for the enemy that he turns into the fiercest of the young fighters. And Lea Thompson and Jennifer Gray play sisters who are every bit the equals of their male counterparts in combat. There are some nice turns in the character department as well, firstly by Lane Smith as the slimy mayor of the town, anxious to do anything to save his skin. Harry Dean Stanton is the father of Swayze and Sheen and is as stalwart as ever as a captured outdoorsman and martyr. And the great Ben Johnson plays a farmer who uses his house as a liaison point for the group to learn information and get supplies.

It’s certainly not the greatest movie in the world, a bit on the predictable side and extremely impossible at times, especially when the small group takes on large companies of men and melts back into the sparsely treed country without a single casualty. But the emotions seem real, in the kind of over the top way you would expect for kids, similar to what was demonstrated in a film like Taps, and it has a bittersweet ending that makes sense in the context of the film. Ultimately it’s the performances, rather than the premise, that is most compelling about Red Dawn, and they make it a film that is certainly worth watching.