Okay I no longer love this movie, hell I don't even like it, but when I was 12 'Red Dawn' was one of my favorite action films. Yes that right wing propaganda piece stirred my blood. Every time I threw in that movie on the VCR I dreamed about my coming teen years and how I soon may have to be an adolescent guerilla.'Red Dawn' starts off in a sleepy Midwest town which suddenly gets invaded by the Soviet Union as well as the Cubans. A few teenagers escape the wrath of the communists and escape in a 4 wheel drive pickup successfully eluding automatic gunfire, RPGs, etc. The teens, led by Patrick Swayze, are thrusted into guerilla combat with the evil commie bastards and often win small battles against them. They hide out in the mountains and operate a 'hit and run' strategy of sorts.
The movie has a great 80s cast including Charlie Sheen, Jennifer Grey, Lea Thompson, and C. Thomas Howell. Most of the rest of the cast will make you point and say "oh it's that guy." The action is somewhat exciting, if not sensationalized. The whole situation of the story is completely ridiculous. Seeing these guys operate a fully automatic weapon effectively is laughable. The dialogue is hit and miss, but overall it's not that horrible.
'Red Dawn' actually makes me cringe now, but looking at it will make you think about how effective propaganda is. The movie wasn't serious enough to appeal to adults so often people my age would watch it with wonder. Most of my friends who saw it actually believed something like that could happen, as did I. People who say movies don't influence thought or behavior are dangerously naive. For those of you who doubt the movies popularity, ask some 30 something guy about what the cry "Wolverines" means to them and see what I mean.
This movie has the dubious honor in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most violent acts in a film.
Clip of woman trying to make parralels between the film and the Iraq insurgency:
"America is a whorehouse... where the revolutionary ideals of your forefathers... are corrupted and sold in alleys by vendors of capitalism..." - Soviet re-education camp.
1 comment:
Every word you wrote about this movie is dead-on! I can remember sitting in my Junior High School classes, looking out the window (God knows I wasn't paying attention to the teacher), and wondering when we would see the sea of para-troopers falling in the distance, now confident in my ability and patriotism, because I had seen Red Dawn I would was prepared!
Thanks for the flashback to 1984 :-)
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