Red Dawn
Entry updated 10 February 2017. Tagged: Film.
Film (1984). MGM/United Artists. Directed by John Milius. Written by Kevin Reynolds, Milius. Cast includes C Thomas Howell, Charlie Sheen, Patrick Swayze and Lea Thompson. 114 minutes. Colour.
Russians nuke US cities and their paratroops, with Cuban and Nicaraguan allies, invade the Midwest. Highschool kids escape into the Colorado mountains, become guerrillas, undergo rites of passage and male bonding, fight brilliantly, mostly die. This incoherent and implausible film gets so sentimental about toughness, like a Parody of Robert A Heinlein, that the viewer's sympathy is largely with the homesick Cuban commander. Red Dawn is symptomatic of the interest in Survivalist fictions during the 1980s. [PN]
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