Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Red Dawn / USA / 1984

In the middle of a high school history lecture on Genghis Khan, his tactics in siege and guerilla warfare, the Reds parachute straight onto the campus, each of them in camouflage that separates them distinctly from the environment. This is fodder for much contrivance – an otherwise segregated high school population banding together to flex the Reagan muscle, driving the Reds out with the patriotism the national anthem instills in them every morning – but the concept is handled with some deftness. Our focus is, expectedly, the football team’s starting lineup (each of them white, handsome, and lettered), and they immediately flee into the forest, to apply the very history lesson the Reds so opportunely interrupted.

The students’ refuge will last throughout the fall and winter—Red Dawn is syncopated by title cards that display the months as they pass by. During this time, little is known about the particulars of the invasion; the communist threat is forwarded not via propaganda, but a more primal paranoia: gun shots heard in a distant horizon, or the thumping blades of a helicopter encroaching from some direction. Because of this, the conflict’s expanse is isolated to only a mid-Western town, but the students refer to it as “World War III” without hesitation because it’s an assault on their limited perception of the world.

by Rumsey Taylor | Source: MGM DVD
20 Aug 2007 2:38 PM | Comments (1)

Comments / 1 total / Submit Comment

1. Turd Ferguson / 20 August 2007 / 8:11 PM

   You should be shot by Patrick Swayze himself for attempting to adumbrate the lack of global impact that these brave corn fed patriots had on the world. WOLVERINES!