Red Dawn (1984)

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Watched this the other day on EPIX.

Though now thought of as high camp predicated upon the preposterous premise of high school kids fighting as partisans, I think the movie holds up much better than people might remember. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that John Milius simply considered the subject of partisan warfare after a Marxist invasion, the movie still carries more depth than you might expect. In fact it can even be thought of as an antiwar movie -- albeit one that is adulterated by exploitation and Cold War paranoia. Yet the human consequences of tyranny and warfare are contemplated quite seriously (John Milius, who co-wrote Apocalypse Now, also co-wrote the script as well as directed).

I felt that the movie was almost perfectly cast as well. It's hard to imagine anyone other than Patrick Swayze as Jed, the laconic mountain man-boy doing his damndest to live up to his hardass father. I think Charlie Sheen works very nicely as teenage neanderthal comic relief who is a natural at putting his chauvinist foot in his mouth with the ladies. And C. Thomas Howell very ably traverses a steady arc between a callow youth with sympathetic eyes into a hardened boy soldier still carrying pain in his thousand yard stare. Jennifer Grey and to a lesser extent Lea Thompson are evocative of small town girls whose impending womanhood was stolen by war and replaced with the choice between rape and hard living with an itenerant band of bean-eating teenage boors. Powers Boothe was born to play the jaded soldier who's seen too much and lost too much to buy into the patriotic bullshit anymore, not to say that he's lost the will to care about or fight for actual people. The Cuban colonel adds an interesting element of self-disgust (and therefore integrity) to the typical arc of ideological disillusionment: rather than simple condemnation of imperial Marxism, the implication is left that dogmatic ideologies in general obscure the truth that the only things worth fighting for are hearth and home. And what can you say about Harry Dean Stanton's turn as Tom Eckert, except that he is the archetype of the PTSD-riddled WWII-Korea greatest generation hardass combat veteran father who worked every day in his life although he might drink to excess on the weekends and maybe even go a little hard with the physical discipline but was absolutely determined to turn his sons into men, even if it killed them. AVENGE ME! AVENNNGE MEEEE!

I haven't seen the remake. Any thoughts here, or comparisons with the new movie?

[sgt.null]

also haven't seen the remake, but I catch the original every couple of years and still enjoy it.

i also believe the cast is perfect. and while the story moves along and hits all the right tones, it is a bit preposterous if you give it any thought.

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

It isn't exactly an instructional manual in guerrilla warfare if that's what you mean, and yes important implications of a partisan campaign are omitted or simply not considered. But I don't think the movie is making those internal assertions, either, it's pretty clearly a work of fantasy that does not attempt to explain how these things are possible. But once you get past that there is some substance to its contemplation of the emotional reality of war. Not an overwhelming amount of substance, but some substance.

[Holsety]

I agree. Tbh, I think camp can often be pretty effective at such effects. Whether they REALLY get to the reality, or whatever, it's not like I've fought in a war. But it's worth not totally writing these things off.

I would go so far as to say that even the first Rambo film (another cold war flick) has interesting elements...I saw another one (probably II) with friends, and I can't say I noticed ANYTHING that made sense about that one. But the first one, well, I simply haven't watched any movies about Viet soldiers coming back home, so even though Rambo is absolutely bizarre in the "single man takes on everything else" action, it's not like I could totally shake a sense of sadness about vets in general coming home after a war (even when better received than after Vietnam, I guess).

[Obi-Wan Nihilo]

Yeah, I liked First Blood also, though it was basically just an adventure story with some poignant (for the time) elements.

[Cail]

Red Dawn has aged surprisingly well, and is a far better film than its detractors give it credit. Like Rocky IV, it's a surprisingly subversive film that is much more than what it seems. Given our incursions into Central America at the time, RD subtly flips the tables on us and has a rather powerful message than most people miss.

It's funny, I watched this again recently, and I was taken aback with just how good the cast and the film itself were.