Red Dawn - No one puts 80s American teens in a corner

I'm one of those rare people who actually never saw 'Red Dawn' in its heyday during the eighties (instead, finding myself watching the recent remake - which isn't as bad as it could have been!).  I found it on an online streaming service and was actually really impressed with what I got.  In case you don't know, those dastardly communist countries around the world conspire to get together and invade the USA - yes, seriously.  And, the only ones able to stop them - well 'hinder them' - are a rag-tag band of teenagers, including Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen.

I heard someone describe 'Red Dawn' as an 'action version of 'The Breakfast Club' and I can sort of see where they're coming from.  However, whereas 'The Breakfast Club' does feel a little bit dated now, 'Red dawn' still holds up (I guess they only made the remake to update the baddies, who became North Korean?).  If, like me, you're a big fan of good ol' fashioned 'overblown' eighties action movies, then you should enjoy this.  I have to say that I expected something more in line with 'The Breakfast Club,' i.e. a story that focused more on the teenage relationships between the protagonists, whereas I actually got a pretty damn good war film.

During the initial invasion of small American town, a school class manages to escape the carnage and hide out in the mountains where they band together to form a 'resistance' movement to thwart the invading forces throughout the occupation of North America.  Of course Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen are the main two teens (if you can believe either were ever once teenage!) and they do a great job.  Lea Thompson is about the only other face you're probably familiar of (but I must confess to only knowing it was her when I saw her name in the end credits!).  But all the youngsters play their parts well and you can actually believe that they're tough enough to form some form of counter-force to the heavily-armed oppressors.

But - for me - what really made the film enjoyable was its realism.  Okay, so if you can suspend your disbelief long enough to accept that the US has partially fallen to an invading force then you can settle in to the story of the hard life a resistance movement must face in their struggle.  The action scenes are pretty impressive (especially for the time!).  There's no CGI here, so all explosions are for real and the helicopter and tank battles are particular memorable.
There are a couple of plot points (especially at the end) regarding character decisions that will leave you wanting to hurl the TV remote at the screen (involving someone wanting to 'perform' a witty quip before killing his hated oppressor, thus giving the bad guy ample time to return fire). 

Anyway, those are minor points.  All in all, 'Red Dawn' actually does a good job portraying hardships that people would suffer if this situation ever came to be.  And, throw in the star-power of Swayze and Sheen and the excellent action scenes and you have a war/action movie that stands the tests of time.

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one