Review of Red Dawn

I promised earlier a review to the movie Red Dawn.

First, let me refer you to Murray Rothbard's and Stan Cox's reviews on the movie.

So what do I think of it?

It was not exactly what I expected. The scenes did not seem to flow particularly well, and I had some difficulty integrating the different attacks by the Wolverines into a larger picture.

However, the portrayal of guerilla warfare was interesting, and, to my untrained mind, not too implausible, except for one thing (to be discussed later).

The beginning of the movie, where the different events leading to the gradual empower of the U.S.S.R., was very effective at creating the impression that the U.S. was in decline, that we had lost the will to defend ourselves, and that in general we were on the losing side and needed to do something quick to change this. It also provided a not-so-subtle criticism of a lot of leftist policy goals and of European anti-Americanism.

The set-up scenes where Jed Eckert gets his brother and friends out of school and then hides up in the mountains are fairly well-done, and do a good job of showing us their abilities and what leads them to the decision to becomes guerillas.

After the guerilla war starts, however, things become a little less interesting. We see a montage of scenes of guerilla attacks on Soviet targets and see the escalating responses of the Soviets and their allies trying to contain the guerillas. While there is a lot there that provides effective commentary on how large armies deal with guerillas, from a narrative point of view it happens a little too quickly for my tastes; we see attack after attack with nary a break for a few minutes.

Complicating matters was the fact that it was sometimes difficult to tell the guerillas from the Soviets, as the clothing was often relatively similar. This was probably somewhat intentional, and realistic - guerillas need to blend in, after all - but it made it harder to identify for whom I should be rooting in some of the battle scenes.

Murray Rothbard's major criticism, that we did not see the gradual additions of new forces as more and more U.S. civilians joined in the fight (in fact, Jed Eckert refuses to expand the guerilla force at one point), is well-taken. This tended to make the movie a tad unrealistic, in that you are seeing a small band of people continuously killing Soviets and severely disrupting their was effort. In real life, I would think, you would see a lot more killing of the guerillas early on, and the inability to defeat the guerilla would stem as much from their ability to regenerate by recruiting from the populace as from their skill. Other than that, I thought that the portrayal of guerillas was accurate, at lest to the extent that it corresponded to my understanding of guerilla warfare.

The addition of a seasoned soldier to the team was nice, and provided an opportunity to get some idea of the war outside of Jed Eckert's little town. Unfortunately, I do not get the sense of coordination that I would have liked; it would have been more interesting if he had helped them to coordinate the attacks with the American Army's goals more than he did; i.e., attack convoy here, attack another convoy there; you've just prevented them from reinforcing the front at New Orleans!

Finally, there is no real sense of closure in the movie. The guerillas (some of them) finally make it through to near springtime, it becomes clear that they will die if they stay, and two of them escape while Jed and his brother make a distraction. What exactly happens to Jed is not made clear, he gets his brother to temporary safety, although his brother has severe, perhaps mortal wounds.

So Lea Thompson's character and some guy escape, and we hear about a plaque erected in Jed's honor.

But we never actually hear how the war turned out, or hear or see anything about the battles that determine the eventual outcome. Presumably, we (that is, the U.S.) win - why else would Jed be commemorated as a hero - but essentially the movie doesn't end, it just stops.

The movie was okay, and good in its essential theme and plot, but it could have used a heck of a lot more fine-tuning.

Two out of four stars.

That is all.