From GreenCine Daily; crosspost courtesy of The Political Film Blog
http://daily.greencine.com

by Nick Schager

[This week's "Retro Active" pick is inspired by the
North Korean-centric remake Red Dawn.]

Of all the places to invade America, Colorado—cutoff from any reasonable air or naval support—would seem a pretty terrible choice. But don’t tell that to Red Dawn, John Milius‘ eminently ridiculous time capsule of Cold War paranoia and teenybopper play-acting, which finds small-town Colorado overrun by Russian and Cuban soldiers. The sight of paratroopers landing outside a high school classroom window is the sole iconic image mustered by Milius’ film, which otherwise details, with dreary and unearned self-seriousness, the efforts of a local group of kids to hide in the mountains, school themselves in the ways of resistance, and then fight back against the invading commie hordes as the Wolverines (a name taken from their high school football team). Thus, the fate of American sovereignty rests in the hands of Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey, who along with a few other nondescript twerps co-opt Latin America guerilla tactics in an adventure that—either laughably or insultingly, depending on your vantage point—embraces the role-reversal fantasy of America as the righteously subjugated underdog forced to battle back against tyrannical oppressors. Continue reading »