“Red Dawn” (August, 1984)

I was only slightly older than my 10 year-old 5th grade son when Red Dawn hit the theaters. It was a “big kids” movie, the first to be released in theaters with a PG-13 rating in fact. I remember the movie poster being so cool with the parachutes coming down over a sleepy Anytown, USA. A young kid with a wild imagination I had day dreamed it up happening at my school and me and my friends taking up arms and beating back the Russians and “the Spanish dudes” (I don’t think I knew what a Cuban was back then). Anyway, I thought the movie was badass and full of some very cool scenes. I couldn’t wait to see the scene with the kids rising from their hiding places in the grass and wasting a bunch of pursuing Russian soldiers. That’s still one of the best parts in the movie to me. That and the dad hollering, “Avenge me!” from behind the cyclone fence at the war camp.

So I watched the movie again the other day and got flooded with a ton of memories. It’s still a great movie in the “popcorn movie” sense, but the huge leaps of logic and screenplay guffaws will ask that you check your 80’s basic world military pecking order arrangement and good common sense at the door before taking a seat. The day firkin’ Cuba catches the USA with its collective pants down and proceeds to invade us and march clear up to Illinois ravaging and pillaging all the way , monkeys will promptly fly from my arse.

So go ahead and rent it, you’ll enjoy it at least as much as a re-showing of “American Ninja” or “The Toxic Avenger”.

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