A Red Dawn rises when Russian and Cuban paratroopers descend from the sky and occupy the small town of Calumet, Colorado. A stellar cast of young-adult, 1980’s acting-juggernauts (Patrick Swayze, C. Thomas Howell, Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey), form a small guerrilla resistance known as “The Wolverines,” named after their high-school mascot. The men in town are interned at the drive-in, some of which are executed in retaliation for the havoc and casualties the Wolverines are causing. Harry Dean Stanton plays father to both Swayze and Sheen, imploring them through the drive-in fence to avenge his impending death. The brilliant Hollywood barbarian John Milius pulls the pin on some explosive combat sequences – directing a script that he co-wrote with Kevin Reynolds. Acting legends Ben Johnson, and the late Powers Boothe, shine as they provide key information and sage advice for the teenage freedom fighters that won’t go down without a fight.
“The film survives better today than such relics of the ’80s as the Rambo movies, mainly due to the visceral force with which the director imbues his characters, young actors (including the still-green Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson, and Jennifer Grey), and James Fenimore Cooperish antics.” – Fernando F. Croce, Slant
“To any sniveling lily-livers who suppose that John Milius, having produced Uncommon Valor, directed Conan the Barbarian and written Apolcalypse Now, has already reached the pinnacle of movie-making machismo, a warning: Mr. Milius’s Red Dawn is more rip-roaring than anything he has done before. Here is Mr. Milius at his most alarming, delivering a rootin’-tootin’ scenario for World War III.” – Janet Maslin, The New York Times
