Red Dawn

I try to avoid politics in my reviews. Not out of fear or concern that third-rail topics might send friends and followers scurrying for the unfollow button if my opinions don't align with theirs, but because I just don't see a need for it here. Yes, there are some movies where the politics are fundamental to its being, but those are the exception. Plenty of people out there can write reviews of Night Of The Living Dead and discuss its socio-political leanings, or write a treatise on how Toy Story re-litigates Vietnam. I'm not that guy. But then there's movies like Red Dawn, where politics ARE the movie. It is impossible to discuss Red Dawn without discussing the social and political trappings of the movie and the times. You may be wondering why I'm reviewing Red Dawn now, in 2026. Well, it's because the wife and I discovered scrolling through our TV's recommendations for movies to watch that neither of us had ever seen it. Seemed like a good time to remedy an omission, a movie many in our generation hold dear. Unfortunately, time has not been kind to Red Dawn. It is unmistakably a product of its time. Jingoistic, Cold War, Manifest Destiny, rugged individualism Republican politics don't just permeate this movie, they are its essential DNA. It has no interest in character depth or exploring complex geopolitical issues. USA good, commies bad. When (not if) World War III breaks out, we're gonna kick commie ass, even down to a group of high school students. Specially trained military personnel with tanks, aircraft, artillery, and technology for coordinating battlefield movements long-distance are no match for seven tenth-graders representing the stars and stripes! Red Dawn isn't a movie, it's transparent political wish fulfillment. The MPAA may have rated this movie PG-13, but we all know it's rated R, and that stands for "Reagan-approved". If the roles in this movie were reversed, the movie would be shunned and called propaganda. The xenophobia and political histrionics that make this movie what it is are, frankly, embarrassing. But even if the awful politics of this movie could be set aside -- and by no means should they be, but we're playing with house money here -- this movie is still a comprehensive failure on narrative structure alone. This movie clocks in at just a hair under two hours, but for all that, there is zero character development whatsoever. Hell, half the characters' names aren't even spoken aloud. I'll give credit that the only two female characters in it aren't treated as useless, and there isn't even a whiff of an attempt at romantic subplots, but they're just as faceless and devoid of personality as the boys ... or, for that matter, the villains. You can almost see sticky notes on the margins of this movie from some script editor at the studio saying "we don't need that" at a hundred different character beats and plot points. Why do the kids only deal with food scarcity when it's convenient for the plot? Why, even though the movie takes places over several months, do they never seem to need haircuts or a shave? Where do they keep getting upgraded weapons, munitions, and tactical gear from, when it never shows them raiding, only destroying and vandalizing? When they liberate the political prisoners from the drive-in, where do the prisoners go? What purpose does Powers Boothe's character serve? Or Charlie Sheen's moment of chauvinism? Why does the commandant of the invading forces start to become sympathetic? Why don't they mobilize and use their superior numbers and better equipment to their advantage? Why does a crucial plot point of one of the team getting captured and betraying the team happen off-screen? Why does the invading army land in a small town in Colorado? None of these questions get answered, nor does it even pretend to try. It barely has enough story to self-sustain, let alone flirt with niceties like logic and narrative cohesion. And then there's how the movie is an hour of the kids absolutely wrecking the invading army like they're shooting tin cans off a fence, and 45 minutes of getting their asses handed back to them. There is no attempt at flow or building an arc. America kicks ass, and when the numbers get too big, we die with our boots on ... and still win the war in a voice-over epilogue. Add those two elements together, and what you get is a movie that is a failure on every level. As a movie, it can't successfully do anything it tries, and as a political statement, it is so anachronistic and xenophobic, it is a shameful relic of a terrible past. Maybe seeing this in 1984 would give me rose-colored nostalgia goggles, I don't know. But seeing it for the first time in 2026 as a 48 year old man, I can't help but wonder how anybody watched this and got something positive out of it. It's corny, shallow, offensive, and stupid.