Review of Red Dawn (1984) by Dan B — 19 Dec 2010

Red Dawn, well it has been said before, and I will say it again, this is nothing but a bunch of American paranoia. Now my main problem with Red Dawn is its lack of character development, it is like Stand By Me with Avatar characters, so as you can tell were in trouble already. The main excuse for this film is that we are not supposed to look at it seriously, but more as a fun ride full of action and fun. You could look at it that way, but as far as every other aspect of this film goes, we have nothing exceeding mediocre, but often much lower. The worse problem with this film that really bugs me is the action. Now for a film that relies on action, we have nothing but a sub-par action experience. The action is not only bloated, but as well as ridiculous and just way too unrealistic to be enjoyable.

To the plot, well in a nutshell I can describe this as a mindless waste of time, but I will humour you and add a bit more detail for you. The worst of the plot is without a doubt the introduction. The most important moments of a film, and this is an example of a failed introduction. We start out as Jed (Patrick Swayze) drops off his younger brother Matt (Charlie Sheen) at school. Shortly after he is dropped off, class begins, a bunch of Russian Paratroopers drop from the sky, and land on the school's oval. They then fire upon the children with almost no mercy. Sheen and a couple more of his teen friends manage to escape, how you ask? Swayze just happened to be picking him up for no apparent reason, convenient. So from here they group up, get supplies and so on, and escape into the hills where they hideout. Now this happens mainly from now on. Now from here the boys band together and learn who they are, oh wait I was talking about Stand By Me. In here, do they take time to develop the characters? No, they do not; they get some girls, go back to town and so on. Sooner or later they become a revolution known as the 'Wolverines' and they cause havoc using Guerrilla tactics on the Russian invasion - and Cuba has something to do with it somehow.

So do you see the problem I see? The plot is so fast-paced an erratic, and I know what you are going to say. The fast-paced plot is suppose to add to the effect of the whole 'world war three thing'. This does not do so though, it only destroys all chances of gaining some liking from me. It is just too fasted, plain and simple, not the only flaw - there are many flaws - but it is definitely the worst. Moving on the action itself is ridiculous. The main problem was that we had about five to ten of the Wolverines, and they would manage to completely wipeout a whole regiment of highly trained Russian soldiers, just too unrealistic. The children were just way over the top, they seemed to have and endless supply of RPG's and the girls would just fire a massive machine gun, and have almost no recoil. I may be being meticulous, but trust me when you watch it just becomes ridiculous.

The acting is horrible, nothing more to it. While I believe some of the acting is made worse by some laughable dialogue, overall the acting is just bad. I also had no empathy, they attempted to show us love interests and rivalling brothers and so on, but none of it worked. If they had managed on making some decent relationships, rivalry and all that cliché stuff, then I might have been able to forgive most of everything else, yet that is not so. The direction was not up to my standards either. I found the action scenes just a drag really; they just looked trashy and failed to grab my interest. The parts I did enjoy were when the director realised that some realism was needed and he killed a character or two, which was a massive positive brining some realism.

You never have a clear understanding on why the Russians and Cubans invade America. Very little is known, now that is fine with me, maybe even a positive if they did it right. They failed in properly balancing the unknown factor. We do not know why they invaded, but we learn details on where they occupy and we see many conversations of the leaders of the enemy. If they had managed in showing almost only the group itself, we would have really felt the effects of isolation and fear, but yet again that is not so. The whole Russians invading, and our untrained teenagers can slaughter your trained men, just really angered me. It is almost as if this film mocks non-Americans. Maybe I am being slightly biased here, but just how they flaunt around, making the enemy to seem like some incompetent idiots just really lowers this film. The film becomes more like a propaganda film, so the Americans watch it, scream, and shout, and make heaps of bombs. This film really brings out the so called 'superior were better then you' in America.

Overall, we have a horrible film, that not only fails at establishing characters and keeping realism, but also creates sub-par action. Therefore, meriting very few positives of this film, and almost in no aspect rising above mediocre. I would suggest this to know one, but this would be recommended to a low morale American military group, just to get them all a little delusional before some combat. Although it is not completely horrible, the audience it targets may be able to accept the pathetic character development and so on, perhaps the eagerness to kill-off main characters is a bit of a miss fire, although I did admire that (slightly George A. Romero-ish).