All Request December: Red Dawn (1984)
Posted By Action Flick Chick on December 18, 2009
Wow! Red Dawn is a MANLY MOVIE! A group of boys (and 2 girls) have to grow up super fast when their town is ambushed by another country. They have to hide in the woods, kill their own food, sleep in the wilderness, scrounging for supplies to survive. The boys drink the blood of the animals they kill as part of some kind of yucky man ritual. They’re forbidden to cry for their dead parents. They stare the enemy in the eye and then pull the trigger without flinching. OH YEAH! The weak perish and the strong survive! That is a manly movie indeed.
Directed by John Milius, Red Dawn follows a group of high school students who, like I said, grow up really fast when a group of Cuban and Soviet soldiers invade their town and take it over. Red Dawn follows an alternate time line where World War III has begun. Seems like movie makers in the 80’s had a pretty bleak outlook on our future. So, you see a very young Patrick Swazye and Charlie Sheen lead a group of youngsters in guerrilla warfare against the invaders of their town. You also get to see pretty little dirty dancer, Jennifer Grey, and Lea Thompson nut up and add to the body count of the baddies. You can only bend over and take it like a man for so long before you snap and start retaliating, and that’s exactly what happened to this group. They finally had enough of the baddies killing their friends and family so they struck back in the name of the Wolverines! (Their high school mascot, not the superhero.)
Let me stress this to you- this is a very serious movie. It’s not one that you laugh at and cheer because the good guys are completely annihilating the baddies. No, this is a gritty, conservative, gloom and doom film. It’s still good, but not in the ha-ha pumped up fun way. In fact, this movie seems like every conservative and survivalist’s dream come true. One memorable shot in particular is of a bumper sticker that says, “They can have my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.” And then it shows just that. A guy is lying dead under the bumper sticker holding a gun. A baddie comes and pries the gun out of his quite cold and equally dead fingers. I bet the baddie saw that bumper sticker and was like “Thanks for the tip, man! Pry it from your cold dead fingers? Don’t mind if I do!”
Red Dawn was the first movie ever to be released with a PG-13 rating. It was also considered the most violent film at the time it came out. Which is pretty friggin’ crazy, considering how not violent it seems when compared to modern action movies like Rambo or Saving Private Ryan or Herbie the Love Bug. There were a lot of explosions and a lot of people getting gunned down. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, it had 134 acts of violence per hour, equaling 2.23 per minute. Now that is a lot of violence! Wolverines!!!! I’m used to hearing Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force or J.D. from Scrubs say that. It was quite different to hear people who were engaging in guerrilla warfare yell this out.
Red Dawn: Delivers on the action, but not on the feel good vibes. If you are in the mood for a serious action film, pick this one up.
Why so serious, Red Dawn?
Time until real action starts: ~ 5 minutes.
Baddies: The Soviets and the Cubans
Best Line: “If I hide, they’ll never find me.” Um, I think someone is missing the point here.
Best Kill: A lot of the kills were just by gun shot, but Jennifer Grey put a little extra spin on one of the kills. Before the group had actually killed anyone they were getting attacked by some baddies and Grey decides to defend herself with a gun. She pulls the trigger but she doesn’t have a good grip on the powerful machine gun, so the gun is spraying bullets all over the place with Grey holding onto the back of it, still managing to kill the baddie but looking like a doofus in the process.
Best Explosion: Wow! There are a metric butt-ton of explosions in this film. One explosion that stood out was when the Wolverines attacked one of the “reeducation” camps where the baddies where holding civilians, a.k.a. concentration type camp. They throw some explosives in a jet. It explodes so friggin’ hard that it blows the pilot straight up out of the jet. That sets off a chain reaction until the whole camp explodes!
Action Rating: 4 Rebellious Wolverines, out of 5
Illustration by Alex Langley. Rocket Llama World Headquarters
This is the Action Flick Chick, and you’ve just been kicked in the ass!
Red Dawn review requested by Gil Paulsen and Batty. Merry Christmas!
About The Author
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Thought you would like that one, especially since the chicks are so bad-ass. “You got any grenades left?” Also, I liked it because it didn’t have an “American ending” as my Norwegian friends used to say about all American movies – in Red Dawn, spoiler alert – pretty much everyone dies.
And, yes, it is the Conservative, Neocon’s anthem film – I should know, I play one IRL
“AVENGE ME!!!!!!!!”
found your blog from wikipedia action movies articles and read a few of your other blog posts.They are awesome. Pleasee continue this great work!! Take care, Jack.
First with a PG-13 rating? I thought it was a Spielberg film, that predates this. I’m willing to be wrong, but I would’ve remembered this….
The ‘R’ rating in my opinion would’ve meant this film wouldn’t have been as successful, however, it probably would’ve still become a cult classic.
Rick just had me review this for irate. He sent me the link to your review, but I didn’t read it till I finished mine. It’s definitely a gun lovin’ Right-winger’s wet dream. Nice job on the review.