Red Dawn (1984)

 An accurate portrayl of everything this movie has to offer

Red Dawn is a "What If" story about what it might have been like if America was invaded in the 1980's by Soviet, Cuban and Nicaraguan armies. I had never seen this movie and passed it up hundreds of times in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart, but when I saw it as a 2-pack with Navy Seals in the very same $5 bin, I had to get it. I even bought a copy for Mark as a late Christmas present (breaking our old tradition of buying eachother only edible gifts). I don't know why, but I never had enough interest in this movie to even read the description, so I had no idea what I was in for. And what was I in for? Maybe the most violent movie I've seen in my adult life (for some reason I saw some horribly violent movies as a kid... I came out alright though). The story focuses around a group of young high school kids (most importantly Charlie Sheen as Matt and C. Thomas Howell as Robert) and Patrick Swayze who plays Charlie Sheen's older brother, Jed. 

Not the Brat Pack

What I appreciated about this movie is that it didn't waste any time getting into the action. Jed drops off his little brother at school and before he can even get out of the parking lot, the Soviets have parachuted and opened fire on a history teacher, interrupting his foreshadowing lecture on the wars of Genghis Khan. The shit storm has started. The troops open fire on the unsuspecting kids and even fire rockets down the hallways. Amidst all the gunfire and confusion,  Matt and Robert are able to run fast to the parking lot where Jed is waiting to give them a ride in his pickup

They are lucky to escape town, which has been completely taken over by enemy troops, and make their getaway to the mountains where they will spend the next couple of months learning how to shoot guns and be men. And how exactly do you become a man? Well, for starters you could kill a deer and then drink its blood. That's what C. Thomas Howell does anyway. Matt and Jed apparently already did that when they were younger and hunted with their father, so they think that it's normal and that everyone should do it. Matt says, "Once you do that, there's going to be something different about you... always!" Well if that ain't the truth! He sure must have the "spirit of the deer" in him, because from this point on, he is a killing machine with no remorse (you know, like a deer). He'd rather wear the scalp of his dead enemies than ever be caught wearing his Star Wars hat with flipped up visor ever again. He honestly becomes too tough for his own good, but has a new sense of school pride when he starts yelling out "Wolverines" (his school's mascott) when he kills people. If school ever re-opens and they make a new sport that involves blowing shit up with rockets, he could totally be the captain.

"Wolverines!"

"A Wolverine!"

Towards the begining of the film, Jed says "It's World War Three down there", but we're not sure if it actually is WWIII until Powers Boothe comes parachuting in to confirm that yes, it is in fact World War Three down there. I'm pretty sure the only point of his character, who's name is Andy, is to give the viewer all the exposition that, up until this point, was missing. He describes how horriffic the war has been and how much of the country has been invaded, blah blah blah. He delivers his lines the same way he later does in Rapid Fire, like a hard boiled detective and much like in that movie, he makes it work. It's like Mark said to me the other day. "It's like he's just too grizzled and badass for reality." But maybe that's just the way he talks.

Everybody's dead!

So far I've mentioned two people that are pretty badass in this movie, C. Thomas Howell and Powers Boothe. Swayze doesn't quite reach the standards set by his fellow castmates even though at one point he does tell everyone to "Never cry again!", but then breaks his own rule by sneaking off into the woods to weep like a little girl. That's not to say that little girls can't be badasses though. Take Jennifer Grey for example. She's a small girl, but manages to be the toughest person in this movie by far. She doesn't say much, but she manages to blow up a tank and a building filled with soldiers. Who needs rockets when you can hand deliver bombs? She even takes a bullet from a helicopter like a champ.


The movie is a little dated based on the fact that the entire story hinges on the audience believing that the Soviets would invade the US. I was born the year this movie came out, so I barely lived in a world where there was a Soviet Union (they dissolved in 1991). All I know is that when I was second grade, our classes got new maps and people started calling it Russia. But even if it was a completely fictional idea that involved a made-up country, the idea of WWIII taking place in the United States is still terrifying. Apparently they are remaking this movie for a 2010 release and instead of the Cold War scare, they are using the terror of a Post 9/11 world. Shouldn't they change the title? I thought the "Red" part of Red Dawn was in reference to the color of the Soviet flag?

Best Quote: Jed and Matt's dad, Mr. Eckert, played by Harry Dean Stanton, yelling to his sons from behind a fence at the local Drive-In turned Prison Camp "Avenge Me!... AVENGE ME!!!

Body Count: Honestly there is no way to keep track of all of them. I tried, I really really tried, but even with pausing the movie and counting the piles of bodies I couldn't keep track. Here's what a 1984 article from the New York Times has to say:
"The National Coalition on Television Violence has condemned the summer hit ''Red Dawn'' as the most violent movie ever made. The fantasy about third-world troops invading a small Colorado town averages 134 acts of violence an hour..."

Point Blank Kills: Again, too many to count. Everyone does it though like it ain't no thang to shoot a guy in the face.

-by Ben Stumpf

Rapid Fire (1992)

Brandon Lee plays Jake Lo, a pissed off art student studying in L.A. The source of his anger? He watched his father get flattened by a tank in Tiananmen Square. The last thing he wants to talk about is what happened to his dad that night, so when he is asked by a fellow student to attend a Tiananmen benefit dinner to share his story and raise awareness of what happened there, he declines. It seems that all he wants to do is draw and maybe find a nice girl and it looks like things are going his way when the nude model from his drawing class asks him out on a date. When he goes to meet her that night, he realizes that this girl tricked him and he's actually at the Tiananmen benefit. What a bitch.

At the benefit Jake witnesses a murder and starts his long series of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. If ever there were a film genre "wrong place, wrong time" this movie would be the poster child. They even say it a few times. Anyway, the murder is committed by one of our two major villains, Tony Serrano (played by Nick Mancuso who plays a dirty DEA agent in Today You Die. Tony is an Italian American (they make this clear by showing him eating pasta constantly and saying things like "bada bing") The murder starts a war between him and his former friend Tommy, an Asian drug lord who refuses to give Tony a bigger cut of his heroin business.  Now Tony wants the witness, Jake, dead and the Feds want to bring Jake to Chicago, Tony's home base,  to help take Tony down.

 When I bought this movie, I had never seen it, but was wishing for a non stop action ride. Wish granted. The action is easy to come by and really well done. Brandon Lee is excellent in the fight scenes and not too bad when required to act. I especially like his relationship with ultra good cop Mace Ryan, played by Powers Boothe. Boothe delivers every line as if he were a 1930's hard boiled detective, but he makes it work. He's as tough as nails, but has a heart of gold and is more worried about getting the job done than his own health.

The film's tag line is "Unarmed And Extremely Dangerous", but this isn't entirely true. There are plenty of instances where Jake has either a gun or knife or metal rod, but something happens to him every time he uses one of these things. Jake seems to be disgusted by weapons and always throws them away after using them even when he needs them most (this is usually done in slow motion). Perhaps Jake prefers to fight hand-to-hand. We already know he is highly trained in martial arts as we are shown in the the slow motion fighting scene in the opening that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie.

Overall the movie is a lot of fun and the acting is decent all around. The plot isn't anything new, but the film makers at least do a decent job of making it somewhat logical, unlike most action movies I've watched recently. It has its cheesy moments and over the top scenes, but for me, those are things that make these kinds of movies so entertaining.

It's worth mentioning that this film, like Death Warrant (see Mark's review from 1/4/10) also features Al Leong. I never knew his name until Mark mentioned it, but I recognized him as that guy that was in some movie, or was it some other movie? Turns out he's both "some movie" and "some other movie" and about 100 others.

Included on the DVD is a short promo shot by Fox during the making of this movie that starts out introducing Brandon Lee as "The Action Hero of the 90's". Unfortunately Lee died soon after this during the making of "The Crow", but had he lived, he would definitely have been at least as big as Van Damme or Seagal and I would most likely be collecting his Direct to Video releases.

Body Count: 34

People who have been on "Lost": 2
Raymond J. Barry who played Ray Shephard (Jack's uncle) and  Francois Chau, who plays Dr. Pierre Chang aka Dr. Marvin Candle (Miles' dad)

References to Bruce Lee: 1
Boothe says to Lee "Why don't you take those Fists of Fury outside?"

-By Ben Stumpf