Red Dawn

The right of people to abuse their freedom by making and showing a film as cynically provocative as Red Dawn is part of the price the rest of us must pay for living in a democracy.

It packs plenty of rabble-rousing ammunition, but its sloppy execution is unlikely to win any merit badges for marksmanship.

When it was released in late summer of 1984, it was a big hit, which shouldn't come as a surprise; this was the year when Reagan won the presidency in a landslide, and if nothing else, 'Red Dawn' plays like a Reaganite masturbatory fantasy.

Released in the midst of renewed Cold War nuclear dread, Red Dawn doesn't starve for unintended wackiness.

Red Dawn‘s grip on the viewer is slowly-but-surely loosened as it progresses into a sluggish and increasingly uninvolving midsection...

No amount of warm and fuzzy ‘80s nostalgia can save this head-smackingly stupid action romp about a bunch of Colorado teens squaring off against Commie invaders.

One could regard Milius’ treatment as almost mythic, his manner and characters spare, his ending grim and reflective on the historical pattern of occupying powers and the forces that resist them.

Revisiting it now as a cynical lefty, though, I have to give the devil his due: "Red Dawn" works.

It takes an intriguing story built around an interesting concept and some good chemistry and creates a movie that feels very 80’s-ish while also still holding up today.

an often compelling and always entertaining, but fundamentally flawed merging of Hollywood's Reagan-era penchant for action escapism and distinct Cold War paranoia