A Major Disappointment

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

The Red menace and Russkies and good old wholesome American boys.How the Russians and Cubans got to the center of America with no resistance and barricaded the strategic little town but kids could leave and enter is part of the magic!

Great movie, alot of great lines. WOLVERINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It pains me to say it, but I really kind of hate this movie. I am an admirer of Milius. This film is dumb ... it's not just the premise that's dumb, the dialogue is horrendous and the plot doesn't stand up to even the most basic scrutiny. I could live with this if the film was enjoyable in a really basic way, like many idiotic Cannon films are, for example ... but this film is deadly serious and dull. It's a shame because a lot of superb character actors are involved ... Harry Dean Stanton, Powers Boothe ... Ben Johnson, for God's sake. It's just a tough, long slog for me with little value derived.

I re-watched the original version of Red Dawn recently. I'm absolutely baffled by the vitriol this movie engenders among its critics. I've seen it referred to as everything from a racist, jingoistic "Ra, Ra, America" piece of Reagan-era trash propaganda to an allegory for the Afghani insurgency (which is far closer to the truth). The vast majority, I believe, completely missed the point of the movie. Either they never watched it or simply didn't pay attention.To call it a jingoistic bit of Reagan propaganda is a stretch, to say the least because the reason the "Wolverines" take up the insurgency is summed up once in the entire movie: "Because we live here!" That, in a nutshell, is the cry of every partisan, insurgent and guerrilla fighter the world over throughout history. They don't do it for "God, Mom and Apple Pie" or any of that crap. They do it because their home was invaded, their families were butchered and their enemy is relentless.Another jab I've seen is that somehow the movie portrays the Wolverines as super soldiers that never talk about, let alone experience, the horrors of war. So, somehow, Robert's descent into sociopathy, the deaths of Arturo "Aardvark" Mondragon and USAF Lt. Colonel Andrew Tanner, the implication that Toni and Erica were about to be raped (or were) and the eventuality of the war grinding down Jed are all completely and totally ignored.Does the movie involve Commies getting mowed down? Ayep, though I would note that its not front-line troops that the Wolverines usually attack, but troop convoys and rear echelon types....just like what happens in most guerrilla/insurgency campaigns. The one time they attack the Spetsnaz, its a well conceived ambush when the Soviets come blundering into the Wolverines encampment. Somehow, I don't think the critics actually paid attention. Red Dawn isn't a Chuck Norris movie.The other thing is that, unlike in other action movies of the era, the enemies in Red Dawn are not faceless automatons/robots to be blown to kingdom come. Colonel Bella is about as sympathetic an enemy as you can get even though he orders the deaths of the parents of the known Wolverines, minus the Mayor who is Daryl's father. The Soviet Spetsnaz commander Strelnikov is also sympathetic and clear headed. Most tellingly, he says he hates the hypocrisy that warfare produces, that euphemistic language of "containing the enemy" and so forth is a bunch of BS. Again, this is not something a mindless robotic enemy would say in a "Ra, Ra, Ra, USA! USA! USA!" movie. Anyway, for TL;DR - Red Dawn (1984) is a hell of a lot better movie than the then critics, then or even now, give it credit for being. Its a lot more subversive in its message than "Kill Commies for God, Mom and Apple Pie!" as some claim.